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serpentmythos · 3 years

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Feelings Finally Spoken

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A pained groan echoed down the pristine white halls of the GDA, Solar grumbling to himself as he brought his arm up to rub at the back of his neck. Everything throbbed, his head and limbs felt like lead, and every fiber of his being was screaming at him to hurry up and turn in this battle report to Cecil so he could collapse on his bed and sleep this all off, and let his healing factor do it's job while the rest of him was unconscious. The other Guardians were in a similar roughed up state, but thankfully injuries were more or less treatable with a relatively short recovery period in the infirmary.

A few dogged questions later, Cecil dismissed the young brunette man to his room. But fate had other plans for Solar. Just as he rounded the corner, his brain just barely registered a looming shadow in front of him, and a raspy clear of a throat. Lifting his gaze up through his lashes, his heart sank when it met with the stern, intense look of the Guardian's combat tutor. The imposing 6'10 form of Shennrai Toruu blocked his advancement down the hallway, her arms folded over her chest and expression serious. Zayn opened his mouth, about to request that training be cancelled for the day, but his lips barely even had a chance to articulate the first word before she pointed back down the end of the hallway. "Infirmary. Now. "

Not entirely keen on sparking the older Raruunekian woman's ire (they had all seen how she laid into Rex when he dared to go against her orders once), Zayn slowly turned a trudged back toward one of the empty infirmary rooms. Sitting down on the bed, every instinct of his willed him to lie down and let the sweet hand of sleep lead him off. But Shennrai entered not long after, grabbing the first aid kit off the wall and pulling up a chair to sit in front of him.

"Ya don't need to do this, Coach," Zayn mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open. "'m perfectly capable takin' care of myself."

"Then why haven't you healed your wounds yet." Her voice was blunt, and her tongue cut into his pride like a hot knife through butter.

Truthfully, Zayn didn't want to admit that he didn't have the energy to heal himself, so instead he huffed and averted his coach's green-gold eyes, not fighting when she snapped on a pair of exam gloves and began tending to him. He clenched his teeth and hissed when the peroxide was swabbed over a patch of road rash on his shoulder, instinctively jerking away a bit. His actions were met with a stern "Hold still."

The light constructor grimaced and complied, bracing himself for each swab of the disinfectant. "I was watching your fight with Cecil. I was very disappointed."

Aaaand there it was. He knew it was coming. When it came to Shennrai's lectures and Special Brand of "Analysis", it was never a matter of if, only a matter of when. Zayn grit his teeth as she smoothed a square of gauze over his shoulder, silently marveling at how such harsh words could ever be paired with such gentle motions of her clawed fingers. He didn't respond to her statement, annoyance just barely held back. "Sloppy. You have no synergy as a team, even after all this time, I thought I trained you better that-"

Zayn finally had enough. "REX was the one that charged in head first like that! And Monster Girl was too preoccupied with chasin' after a lackey to realize that we needed help-"

"SILENCE, BOY. " Shennrai snapped back, Zayn's entire body going stiff as a board when she raised her voice at him, shrinking back like a puppy that had just been kicked. "You cannot blame your shortcomings on your fellow team members. You must ALL take responsibility for your actions, or lack thereof. Do I make myself clear?"

Zayn hesitated before looking down at his lap. "... Yeah, but you don't gotta be so harsh about it." He responded softly, tone of voice tired and a little meek, but still undeniably annoyed.

"How else will you learn, then, Solar?" She retorted, and Zayn didn't respond. Deep down he knew she was right, that battle HAD been a shitshow and a half, and there were a lot of things that could've gone better. But Shennrai's words only served to deepen the sting of failure, and Zayn would've been lying if he said he didn't feel like crying out of frustration in that moment.

The following silence between them was filled with only the noises of the clinking of tweezers and the soft rasp of cotton bandages being pulled off their roll. Zayn was almost drifting off when Shennrai sighed, making him jolt awake again. "Zayn... You do realize that I don't say the things I do to demean you, or invalidate your efforts or the efforts of the Guardians, don't you?" She asked. "I'm tough on you all because I want you and the Guardians to become greater than those before you. I've seen the potential each and every one of you possess, I want you to succeed, to become the heroes this planet deserves. The heroes I know you can be."

"I know, Mom..." He mumbled, exhausted brain not immediately realizing his lapse in the way he addressed her. However, as soon as he did, he immediately attempted to launch into an apology. "Zayn." His words were cut off by her speaking his name, and he was met with a clawed hand squeezing his uninjured shoulder.

"C-Coach...?" He mumbled, falling into a stunned hush when the normally stand off-ish alien pulled him into a hug, something he had never seen her do, let alone experience before. He didn't know much about her culture, only that physical displays of affection like this were reserved for a very select few.

"I may not have been the one who bore you into this world..." Shennrai mumbled, tightening her hug just a bit. "But I still love you just the same as if you were my own flesh and blood."

Zayn bit into his bottom lip, eyes welling up, and he reached around her to return the hug. Burying his face into the shoulder of her pale blue combat uniform, all the tears, the weariness, and bottled up emotions that had been threatening to boil over for so long... Were finally allowed to spill freely down his cheeks.

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@criedhavoc

Here you go, have a drabble I came up with in the shower.

#invincible #invincible oc #zayn noor #shennrai toruu #my writing #I AM SO TERRIBLY SORRY IF ANYTHING I WROTE WAS OUT OF CHARACTER FOR HIM #I JUST HAD A LOT OF FEELINGS I NEEDED TO PUT INTO WRITING

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goldandlights · 4 years

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of cherries and dandelions

aka lil virgin!Jas biting off more than he can chew when he propositions Geralt shortly after Posada :(

rating: explicit pairing: geraskier (pre-relationship? it could be read as casual sex) tags: top!Geralt, bottom!Jaskier, first time, sex toys, communication failure, angst and fluff

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It’s summer in Lyria, a mild and pleasant evening, when Jaskier leans over to Geralt and croons some saucy verse about fucking in his ear. There are no other patrons to entertain in the tavern and the young bard honestly expects nothing but the usual glaring and growling from his sourly companion. Even 2 months into their shared travels, the Witcher seems to barely tolerate his presence. Pity... but hey, Jaskier is working on it.

Geralt is as fine a specimen as he has ever seen; tall, broad and strong , with thick arms and even thicker thighs that make the bardling’s mouth water when he imagines sinking down between them. (And the hair! The eyes! -oh, his eyes… )

Between the power to crush the bones in a human’s body, reflexes so fast he can cut an arrow out of the air and senses so acute they can pick up on a mouse rustling through the underbrush half a mile away, the white-haired Witcher was undoubtedly created to be a finely-tuned killing-machine. But Jaskier can find no trace of fear within himself.

In their time together, Geralt has shown himself to be noble and quietly compassionate above all else, avoiding confrontation and violence to the point where he’d rather leave an inn, meal unfinished and bed paid-for but unused, than defend himself against those who hurl abuse (and sometimes sharp objects) at him.

It’s just not fair and so Jaskier has sworn to do anything in his power to improve the situation.

It also makes the sizzling attraction all the worse.

Not only is Geralt stupidly hot, but he’s also kind and oddly charming and it messes with the poor bard quite terribly. He can’t stop sending winks and overt, suggestive glances Geralt’s way. Can’t stop spewing flirtatious remarks and innuendo. The young man has yet to learn how to be anything other than obvious about his desire but he does already know that confidence is the name of the game.

Still, Geralt is Geralt. Tough and experienced and probably entirely straight .

So even if the mental image of all that juicy bulk pressing him down into the sheets makes Jaskier’s prick twitch and leak, he does not expect his actions to incite a response in the other man at all.

That’s his first misjudgement.

Because when faced with the 5th overt come-on in as many hours, for the 6th week in a row, Geralt huffs, rolls his eyes and- stands up?

“Come on, then,” He says gruffly, already turning towards the stairs and Jaskier’s brain grinds to a sudden, jarring halt.

Wait, what.

He stands frozen, gaping unattractively until Geralt notices his hesitation and turns around with a raised eyebrow.

“Or are you all bark and no bite after all?”

Well.

Barely 18 and still rather fresh out of Oxenfurt, Jaskier has been with a whole lot of three women and sucked cock exactly once . -under the watchful eyes of those that still knew him as Julian there hadn’t been many opportunities to experiment.

Still, the bard had his fingers, fantasies and a lovely little toy pulled from a heap of bits and bobs at a novelty shop in Vizima.

It was maybe 6 inches long with a conveniently flared base and a lovely bulge on the upper half. Add just a bit of oil and it slides in easily, the comfortable stretch setting every nerve alight. Jaskier enjoys having it in, even when he’s not hard or trying to get off, and plays with it whenever he can. It’s just so nice to be full, to clench around it, to dream of his body giving a lover pleasure this way.

Is this the opportunity he’d been waiting for? Possibly. If it is though, it’s fast slipping through his fingers. With a grunt as if to say I knew it , Geralt turns and continues his way up the stairs. Shit.

Gathering all his courage, Jaskier shakes himself out of his stupor and stumbles forwards.

When the door to their room falls shut behind him, the bard is already fully hard, blushing furiously at his own over-eagerness when Geralt takes one look at the tent in his breeches and raises a perfectly shaped brow.

Jaskier knows he mustn’t let the nervous energy twisting in his gut bubble over. The Witcher can smell emotion, at least basic ones like joy or fear, and he’ll notice any uncertainty the bard projects. How would he react? Surely Geralt has no use for an inexperienced bed-partner.

Really, Jaskier feels quite out of his depth. In their tiny room, the burly Witcher is doubly imposing and the bard has no frame of reference for how such things between men are carried out. Deciding it’s best not to lose momentum, he puts his lute down against the wall and steps up to where Geralt is standing next to the bed.

Confidence, Jaskier.

He pushes right into the man’s space and kisses him, forcefully, hands going up to grab at the broad chest he’s been staring at lustily for weeks. Immediately, Geralt is kissing back, huge hands settling on Jaskier’s waist.

Biting and sucking on soft, plush lips, he forces Jaskier back a step, then another, curbing any attempt to crowd the Witcher towards the mattress. The young man, however, is too distracted to worry about the shifting power balance. He has two handfuls of Geralt’s thick, bulging pecs to bind his attention and, oh, they’re tensing deliciously as a growl rumbles from the Witcher’s throat.

“I’m not one of your milk-maids, Jas,” he bites out and the bard finds himself picked up and damn near thrown onto the bed as though he weighs nothing at all.

After two months of yearning and awkward boners, the youthful bardling finally gets his wish of being buried alive under 200 pounds of excitable Witcher, keening and whining as he’s absolutely ravished . Either Geralt also has some sexual frustration to burn through or he’s always that intense -at least it leaves no room for nervousness.

Within minutes, Jaskier’s doublet and undershirt have been shoved off and the Witcher’s face is buried in the hair on his chest, breathing him in, sword-calloused fingers pulling and pinching at the bard’s nipples. Pain transforms into tingling pleasure and Jaskier barely contains a cry.

He had never thought to play with his chest this way; a most grievous oversight. When Geralt’s mouth latches onto one of the stiff little nubs, licking and sucking, eager little mewls start spilling from Jaskier’s mouth. Sweet Melitele . If anything, he seems to be the milk-maid in this scenario.

There’s nothing soft about the body atop of him, nothing that gives to the frenzied clutch of his hands. Geralt has divested himself of his shirt as well and Jaskier runs his hands mindlessly over the skin he can reach, drinking in the unfamiliar sensations of coarse hair and scarring under his fingertips.

The urge to spread his legs like a 3 ducat whore is a bit embarrassing but undeniable. And it’s really not fair when life rewards his shamelessness with a Witcher’s hard belly pushing down onto his prick. Jaskier nearly spills then and there from the friction. He’s so fucking hard and they haven’t even done anything yet.

If Geralt notices the wet spot at the front of his trousers, he doesn’t say anything -which is a rather small mercy overall, considering the thoughtful look the older man levels at Jaskier when he draws back, sitting up between wantonly splayed thighs to examine the young body underneath him.

“Sensitive, are you?” Geralt murmurs, drawing his calloused palms down the length of Jaskier’s quivering body.

They’re warm, so warm as they run along his vulnerable belly and sides. A gentle, soothing pressure which brings momentary respite from the urgent throbbing between Jaskier’s legs. Goosebumps prickle over his skin.

Jaskier moans breathlessly, arching his back as Geralt rubs his thumb over the soft little bump below his navel. It is answer enough.

To distract and discourage further questioning, Jaskier catches one of the Witcher’s thick wrists in one hand and makes grabby motions with the other. Even when not pitted against a Witcher’s heightened senses, Jaskier is a terrible liar. He worries if Geralt starts asking questions, the truth about his previous experience -or lack thereof- will slip out.

He’s in luck though; Geralt looks surprised but simply obliges the wordless demand.

Happily buried under a mountain of Witcher again, Jaskier seeks out his slightly chapped lips for another lovely kiss. It’s addictive. Their mouths meet languidly, and he relishes in the opportunity to card his fingers through the other man’s beautiful white hair.

Geralt, surprisingly, does not protest and does not, for the moment, make any motions towards getting on with the programme. He actually seems quite happy to stay in that position for a bit, simply enjoying the warmth and closeness of their bodies as Jaskier works to calm his racing heart.

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“I want to see you suck my cock.”

Spoken softly into the unexpectedly peaceful silence, Geralt’s murmur is carefully undemanding. His hungrily roaming hands, however, give away the desire hidden underneath. Nodding to the unspoken request, Jaskier lets go of the Witcher’s soft tresses to watch him undress.

That’s when Jaskier realises his second misjudgement of the night.

He knows himself to be quite average in length and girth. With his little glass toy being similarly sized, Jaskier had thus felt quite safe in the belief that, whatever his first proper male conquest was packing, he’d be able to handle it just fine.

Except that nothing about Geralt was ever average. Not his appearance, not his strength and not, apparently, his fucking dick.

>>>>> read the rest on ao3

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #the witcher #i'm ON my bullshit #this is 7k total #the 2nd chap will be up on thursday #ayyy #my writing #NOW BACK TO THE OMEGA!GERALT SMUT

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yanara126-writing · 4 years

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A Death in Your Name - A Life in Your Name (5/5)

How can one mortal soul be so important to a god?

You misunderstand. I'm not Galawain or Magran, I'm not used to people dying for me.

And yet they do. Some willingly, some not.

Iovara's sister, inquisitor and high priestess of Eothas', has made a mistake, her way of righting it impacts more things than she's expected. Perhaps Iovara has more in common with a certain god than she likes and perhaps Eothas should rethink his actions, or lack thereof, if he doesn't like the consequences.

Eothas is not how Iovara remembers. But then neither is she.

Read here or on Ao3

Have fun! Comments always welcome! :)

Again, time passed, though even Iovara could tell it was significantly less than before. Then suddenly, the flow of souls stopped and Thaos’ presence disappeared, as if it had never been. It was startling to have the pressure of his power vanish from one moment to the next. Shortly afterwards, the accumulated souls left as well, though where to Iovara couldn’t tell. Somewhere in the distance she could feel her sister and her friends leave, their souls’ absence leaving a hole in her perception, that hadn’t been there before. Still, she couldn’t find it in herself to regret meeting the group, her sister’s incarnation most of all.

Though the years in loneliness had smothered the fire of her anger, it had left a different hole behind, gaping and terrifying. A part of it had been filled through the conversation, the largest in fact, but a slight nagging was still there. Iovara knew how to satisfy it, but that didn’t make it easier to jump over her shadow. The metaphorical one anyway.

For a while she fought with herself, but she’d never been good at denying herself, and she knew that this was something she had to do. Holding a grudge for two thousand years was hard, even for her. And so she gave in and built her projection once more. Technically there was no need to, he would be able to sense her with or without a physical shape, but she felt there was certain politeness in making herself as visible as possible.

“Eothas.” Iovara waited. Patience was not an issue for her anymore, she had nowhere to go, nowhere to be, only this moment and eternity. Slowly, far more slowly than that time millennia ago, his presence trickled in filling the adra around her and casting an invisible mist over everything. The light growing in strength seemed more muted than Iovara remembered, but she dismissed the thought. Years of darkness and loneliness were hardly conducive for one’s memory.

Even once he was clearly there, he remained silent, no question about her call, no comment on the time, just patiently waiting for her to start. So, she did.

“You never really let go of her, didn’t you?” Only once she’d said it did she realize, how much like an accusation it sounded, even though she surprisingly hadn’t meant it as one.

I suppose. His answer wasn’t defensive or even frustrated, instead it was... small somehow, and sad. Like he was expecting a reprimand. How strange...

“Is her hair your fault too?” Iovara did her best to alleviate the strange atmosphere with a joke. She hadn’t called him to argue again. And the light blonde hair with the red touch in combination with a priestess’ garb really had awoken certain suspicions in Iovara.

Hardly. I have less influence on physical attributes than most think. Though I have heard it referred to as sun-kissed. A slight note of satisfaction rang with the words, causing Iovara to doubt them somewhat, but for once in her long existence she found she didn’t mind this secret.

“I just met her. Emblyn-“

Favaen. Iovara stopped short at the interruption and stared confusedly into the nothing, waiting for Eothas to explain. Her name is Favaen. Ah, that made sense, of course she had a new name now. Somehow knowing that made her both sad and happy. It was the undeniable proof that her life as she knew it was over, something she had known, but never really seen until now. On the other hand, it was also proof that not everything relied on her, her failure didn’t mean the world’s end, life still continued. Oh, the irony of welcoming the same wheel she had cursed for so long...

“Favaen. I hope she found the answers she was looking for.” At some point it might’ve been a hidden question, but not anymore. Em- Favaen had promised to return after all, Iovara would ask her then.

I think she did. Eothas answered anyway, though Iovara had the feeling he wasn’t saying everything he thought. The absence of her burning curiosity was something she still had to get used to.

Something else was burning though, something that had been a quiet buzz just hours ago and had grown into an urgent need after her talk with Favaen.

“Thank you.” She spoke the words far steadier than she ever would have thought, a declaration of sincerity, as much as her speeches against him and his kind had ever been. “For taking care of her when I couldn’t.” Both before and after her death was what went unsaid.

For a while nothing happened, but Iovara was used to his stretches of silence by now. What she wasn’t used to was the strange way the atmosphere grew heavier, not threateningly, but sombre somehow. And yet, she’d only talked with him once and that was millennia ago, who was she to judge what was normal for him.

I didn’t do it for you. A fair point, made not unkindly, but without doubt or reluctance.

“I know,” Iovara nodded. “But that doesn’t change my gratitude.” The years in solitude had given her time to reflect. It wasn’t about her, it had never been about her, and she’d been foolish to ever think so. Just like it wasn’t about him either, though if he knew that she couldn’t tell.

The adra lit up lightly, a show of acceptance she knew now. For a while silence reigned again, but instead of being tense or loaded like before, it was now... not exactly comfortable, but based on enough agreement that it was tolerable.

For some reason Iovara had the feeling that he was almost soaking up the silence. As dim and heavy as everything seemed, there was also a vague sense of comfort from the adra. Why he would enjoy her company of all things Iovara didn’t know, it wasn’t like he was the one with no social contact for years.

After a while of quiet contemplation with only the soft, low hum of energy in the air, Iovara broke the silence once more, spurred by the strange ghost of loneliness and regret she couldn’t interpret, but felt a certain kinship for nonetheless.

“For what it’s worth, if she had to choose, I think she chose well.” She really did, though it had taken her a long time to accept it. Her sister had made her choice, as much as Iovara had, and after seeing what had become of her, Iovara could finally admit that it had hardly been the worst choice she could have made. Woedica had dropped Iovara the second she had started asking questions, but Eothas had stayed true to his word and had protected her over the course of millennia.

Yet instead of helping the sad atmosphere, her words only seemed to make it worse, as the light grew even dimmer, shadows creeping into the corners of the room. Just when Iovara decided to give up on her newly found contentment with mysteries and ask, the adra brightened again, as if nothing had happened.

Thank you. The words were smooth and sincere, but without the edge of emotions Iovara had come to expect. You gave her the dagger. That startled her out of suspicions and she focused on the spot on the stone ground, where for years her chosen gravestone had rested. Now instead of the dagger, there was only a vaguely oval shape in the dust.

“You disagree?” she asked, genuinely interested, though his opinion wouldn’t change anything. He’d wanted to take it back then, yet had obliged her wishes to leave it. Now she’d given it away. Would he be frustrated?

Disagree is too strong a word. I am... hesitant. But it is not my decision to make. Forcefully Iovara was reminded of her own outbreak the last time they met, yet she also thought she hadn’t actually said those words. To hear them now from him was strangely disorienting. She was now sure something had changed him, tough was that really so surprising? She had changed, even completely alone and isolated, while he had spent the time watching the whole world change around him.

He seemed to sense her racing thoughts, or perhaps it was something completely different, but the shadows started rising again, as the light of the adra ebbed away, the energy making the crystals pulsate with urgency and something else, that Iovara couldn’t identify properly.

I have to leave now. The sentence was hacked off and rushed, and he was gone far faster than he’d come, leaving Iovara behind, stunned at his sudden disappearance. For all her earlier thoughts of change, patience and contentment, she was still affronted at the rude departure. And a departure it most certainly was. All traces of his existence had vanished, the weight of his presence lifted, and only the dim, natural glow of the adra was still visible in the all-encroaching darkness.

This wasn’t what Iovara had expected from this talk. He hadn’t at all been what she remembered. Instead of the confident, righteous god, who’d let her live out her anger without so much as a twitch, he’d seemed almost broken, fearful of something Iovara couldn’t imagine.

Although... perhaps she could. After all, the reason Em- Favaen had come here in the first place had been Thaos stealing souls from the wheel. Though Thaos had once upon a time been loyal to the gods in general, from what Favaen had told her it sounded as though he’d followed Woedica into her exile. The terrible things he’d done before, in the name of spreading the faith, had been atrocities, but only against kith. He’d never disturbed the divine order like this before, and though Iovara had no doubt about Woedica’s willingness to do so, she doubted the god of rebirth had been very happy about souls being stolen from right under his nose. The fact that someone could, must have been quite the shock to him, so maybe his twitchiness wasn’t all that surprising.

With one last head shake Iovara let her form vanish again. Whatever it was, it wasn’t her problem anymore. She was sure Favaen would set him right soon enough, now that Thaos was out of the picture. And maybe she’d even hear about it later, once Favaen came back.

Though Iovara knew she wasn’t really her sister, there was still a familiarity between them, that had stretched across the years and lives. Or maybe it was just that she was starved for any sort of attention after so long. Either way it didn’t matter.

For the first time since her death she found herself hopeful for something.

#Pillars of Eternity #Eothas #Iovara #The Watcher #fanfiction #writing #tragedy #Iovara's sister #finding peace #religion #sibling love #Thaos #miscomunication #cause talking is hard #especially for these two #Watcher Favaen #Iovara doesn't know shit #and for once Eothas wants to keep it that way #both of them are lonely

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harry-sussex · 5 years

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My Thoughts on The Duke of Cambridge, The Duchess of Sussex, Kensington Palace, Accountability, and the Cyberbullying Task Force

I recognize that not everyone agrees with me, and that’s alright. I am more than willing to have a discussion but I implore you to be respectful about it. I believe in my soul that The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex would want their fans to discuss things civilly, respectfully, and fairly. As a fan of all four of them forever, I will engage in conversations that only treat them with the fairness, dignity, and respect that they deserve.

Prince William gave a powerful, honest, and bold speech today at the BBC on the topic of the cyberbullying task force he convened a year ago. Instead of the typical praises, thanks, and platitudes that are often synonymous with royal speeches, The Duke of Cambridge delivered a powerful and polarizing analysis of his contributions and lack thereof to the task force, including both successes and failures. Instead of proclaiming various successes on behalf of his task force, he admitted its faults, admitted its failures, admitted his own wrongdoings and biases. He vowed to use this as a learning experience so he could use his incredible platform to help victims of cyberbullying, and to - someday - eliminate it altogether.

This analysis came with a plea. Not directed towards the public, but directed towards social media developers. The plea was more of a subtle demand - a demand for social media developers to consider cyberbullying when further advancing technology for use in their platforms. His message became clearer and more powerful as he added a personal touch - he brought up the perils of raising three young children in a world of cyberbullying after having seen firsthand as an air ambulance pilot the effect words can have on vulnerable populations.

He held accountable the developers of social media platforms who are often reluctant to make changes that do not result in a direct profit. He commended these people for the undeniable impression they have made on the history of mankind, one that will last forever. But, he put the power in their hands - it is up to the developers to expand the safety and filtering features available on social media platforms to protect users.

He made it clear that it is not up to victims or the common population. These people should not be forced to scroll through their own feeds and they should not be responsible for reporting cyberbullying comments. In a perfect world, these comments should never reach anyone’s feeds. This world is not perfect and nobody is claiming it is. However, cutting off the availably of a platform for cyberbullying will eliminate or vastly decrease the number of comments made. That, as Prince William made clear today, is up to the developers and the developers alone.

My impression of this plea was that it was a place to start. Ultimately, the goal is to eliminate cyberbullying altogether. This is a tall order, one that is complex and not easily fulfilled. You cannot systematically change the minds of millions of people overnight. One must start with baby steps, and that starts with the people at the top. If developers admit their own accountability, vow to initiate programs and technological advancements that are for the good of mankind (if not for a direct profit), and initiate change in this way, it could trickle down to the masses. If there is no platform for hate speech and cyberbullying due to advancing technologies, then the effect of such hurtful words is minimized. Over time, this type of speech may even vanish.

This type of change cannot happen person-by-person. It has to happen within the technology of social media platform development. Prince William made that very clear in his speech today.

It is a noble endeavor supported by The Duke of Cambridge. It is even more noble that he admitted his approach was faulty at first, and that he vowed to learn from his mistakes and alter his approach to continue to combat cyberbullying in a more effective and efficient manner.

When I read the full transcript of the speech, I was stunned. And then I read it again, and I was proud. We have seen more so than ever this year that Prince William has a certain kind of skill that prioritizes diplomacy, intelligence, and the ability to speak about polarizing and often political subjects without leaning even a centimeter to either side. He is developing phenomenally as an heir, as the future Prince of Wales and as the future King.

It did not take long for people to condemn his words.

Reading the comments on the Kensington Palace Instagram page or Twitter feed is an exercise in restraint to Wales, Cambridge, and Sussex fans. For every positive comment, there are at least three negative - calling The Duchess of Cornwall a home-wrecker/”Not Diana”, calling the Duchess of Cambridge a slut/mattress, and repeatedly insisting that The Duchess of Sussex does not belong in the British Royal Family for reasons that many of them refuse to write out in words.

Everyone knows why they say that about Meghan, though. It may have a tiny bit to do with her being an American (xenophobia), it may have a tiny bit to do with her career prior to her marriage (classism/general judgment), and it may have a tiny bit to do with her being divorced (sexism).

The real reason, though, is that they’re racists. Plain and simple. They see the (relatively speaking) pure-white history of the British Royal Family, and they see that their beloved Prince Harry married a biracial divorced American actress, and they settle on the fact that she doesn’t “fit in.” That she doesn’t look like William, Catherine, or Harry. That she doesn’t have blonde hair or blue/green eyes or porcelain skin, that she doesn’t “match.” That she “sticks out.” It’s sickeningly racist. It’s horrific. It’s inexcusable and unforgivable and nauseating and cruel and disrespectful and I could go on and on and on with adjectives to describe just how terrible it all is. Yes, these are all things that I have read with my own two eyes about poor Meghan, who just happens to be biracial, who has a big heart and such compassion and empathy and sweetness and strength and who just happened to fall in love with and marry someone who just happens to be a British Prince.

Reading it with my own two eyes makes my skin crawl, makes my heart ache for this woman who I have grown to adore and for her husband who I have loved for several years.

And it’s horrible, and it’s infuriating. Whenever I scroll through, I often find myself seeing red not three comments down. Chris Jackson has had to disable comments on his photos of The Duchess of Sussex (and, to my knowledge, only The Duchess of Sussex). That’s not due to anything other than her being biracial. If it was about divorce, Chris Jackson would have had to disable comments on photos of The Duchess of Cornwall. If It was about sexism or classicism, Chris Jackson would have had to disable comments on The Duchess of Cambridge.

It’s about racism. Period. Maybe a tiny bit of xenophobia, but the real dominating reason for this is about racism.

People who have condemned Prince William’s speech today believe that he is being a hypocrite for speaking out against cyberbullying - especially so frankly and bluntly - because he does nothing to control the comment stream on the Kensington Palace Instagram and Twitter feeds. “He is in charge,” they say. “He doesn’t monitor the comment threads and therefore he is complicit in the racism that Meghan faces every day.”

Prince William has a job, and that job is to be The Duke of Cambridge, soon to be The Prince of Wales, the heir to the heir to the throne. A father, and a husband, and a son, and a brother. A Prince and a future King. His job is not monitoring the Instagram and Twitter comment threads to which I can almost guarantee he has no access. He does not control the Kensington Palace feeds or comments or replies. I would argue that he likely does not even have access to these accounts. Prince William - and his wife, and his brother, and now his sister-in-law - learned a long, long time ago to avoid the comments made about them and their family. Nobody in the world knows better than William and Harry how damaging the media and the general population can be when they’re greedy and unkind.

Kensington Palace has a staff of people whose entire jobs are dedicated to monitoring the social media presence of the Cambridge and Sussex households. Theoretically, these people could disable comments on all posts, and eliminate the platform altogether. Maybe that’s a conversation that has already been had, one that we are not privy to. Maybe it’s a conversation that they need to have.

But, in my opinion, what about the positive comments? What about the comments that recognize these four remarkable individuals as instruments for good? What about the citizens of the United Kingdom and of the Commonwealth who have a right to at least some access to the most relatable generation of the Royal Family? What about well-wishers from across the globe who want to wish love, happiness, success, and prosperity on the young British royals?

Is the Kensington Palace staff really going to penalize the positive and supportive commentators for the actions of the racists and bigots? How is that fair? Are they going to really further limited already-limited access to the Cambridges and Sussexes?

Eliminating the comments section on the Kensington Palace feeds does not teach people anything. It just allows them to be cruel somewhere else, directed at someone else. What does that accomplish? That’s not in line with Prince William’s message at all.

A huge part of the success of the monarchy is in public relations. If you take away yet another point of access to an already private group of young royals, people will only grow more and more aggravated. Charles’ popularity suffered for years and years and years. Even now, the polls (which should be taken with a grain of salt) indicated that the four younger royals hold significantly more popularity than the next King? The monarchy does not need the most popular generation of British royalty - arguably ever - to take any massive hits in popularity.

They could shut off the comment sections, sure. But really, what would it solve?

Who is accountable for the racist remarks made against Meghan? Easy - the commentators. The racists and the bigots. But, as Prince William made very clear in his speech today, it is immensely difficult to change the minds and perceptions of millions and millions of people all at once. I would argue that it’s pretty near impossible to do so.

Prince William’s charge was clear - the social media developers need to analyze their platforms and brainstorm better ways to monitor what is being said in comment threads and posts. These technologies will trickle down to the masses. If the ability to cyberbully is physically restricted by developing technology that prevents horrible comments and phrases from being published, then cyberbullying will diminish. Significantly.

Surely there are technological advancements that are within arm’s reach that could monitor for certain words and phrases. A simple code can scan letters, numbers, and symbols for a combination that forms a sentence/phrase/word, which can then be automatically flagged for review. Low-level staffers - employed by the social media platforms - can then review the automatic flags and make the judgment call on whether they’re considered cyberbullying or not. Users can report comments as well to bring the platform’s attention. They remove the comment if it meets the criteria of being hate speech in any way, and the staffers are held accountable in the workplace if they don’t. It isn’t seen by the public, nor is it seen by the target/victim. In the meantime, these staffers can peruse the replies and comments for anything not caught by the system. Cyberbullies lose their platform, lose their ability to garner attention through likes, comments, and reactions. Eventually? They’ll give up. It will take some time, effort, financial investment, and study. Trial and error. But theoretically? It can stop. Once the technology is developed and universally agreed upon by social media developers to utilize in their platforms, theoretically, hate speech on the Internet can cease to exist.

Is it Prince William’s job to come up with this? Absolutely not. His job, as I said before, is to be the heir to the heir, The Duke of Cambridge. It’s up to the developers at Instagram and Twitter and other major platforms. His job is to use his popularity, reputation, status, and platform bring attention to the matter, so more and more people begin to demand these improvements from the social media developers.

What did his speech today accomplish? Exactly that.

He, a high-profile royal in direct line to the throne, made a speech, charging the social media developers to come up with solutions such as these to protect vulnerable populations. He did exactly his job as father, husband, son, brother, former air ambulance pilot, Prince, Duke, and future King.

If these changes are made, they’ll also protect Meghan. If the social media giants invest in technology that can scan for and flag phrases such as “does not belong” or “not a real royal” or “too dark” or “messy hair” or any of the other dozens and hundreds of disgusting, racist phrases used to insult people of color, these advancements will not only protect regular people. They will protect Meghan.

If we broaden those phrases to include words such as “slut,” “home-wrecker,” etc., they’ll protect Catherine and Camilla. They’ll protect millions of women, children, and people of color all over the world who are subject to cruelty at the hands of the Internet every single day.

We know that William and Meghan have a warm and supportive relationship. We know that William is fiercely protective when it comes to his family - scarily so, if I may say so myself. Everything we have on the record about William and his interactions with Meghan indicates that he would be the first one to swing if anyone came after her. Maybe only second to Harry, but that’s because he’s just like his brother - passionate, fiercely loyal, even more fiercely protective. I have no doubt in my mind that William would never stand idly by as his sister-in-law is subject to such cruel commentary. And he hasn’t - as we have seen in the speech today.

Prince William is not a hypocrite. He does not stand by complicity while cyberbullying happens around him, while racism happens around him. He gave an entire speech today demonstrating just that. If anything, he is inciting exactly the change you all are looking for in the Kensington Palace comments section, albeit via a different method that you may have thought best.

In making the claims and charges he did in his speech today, Prince William began to incite change in an industry that has insofar been complacent by standing idly by, counting their millions while people suffer every day due to words spoken to them on the Internet. I can only hope that the developers will hear his message loud and clear, that they will bow to the pressures of the future King challenging them and calling them out and make the changes that he has demanded in order to provide a safer online community for the entire world.

#long post #VERY long post #here's my essay y'all #prince william #duke of cambridge #kate middleton #duchess of cambridge #Meghan markle #duchess of sussex #prince harry #duke of sussex #bbc18 #my post #royal fandom #british royal family

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inhumanresources · 6 years

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The Nightblade Canticle. 10.

He circled as best as he could, jerking over and around the low tables covered in books and half-empty coffee cups. His poise was perfect, his left hand resting lightly on the kashira of his noble and reasonably-priced blade. His opponent circled in turn, moving easily and elegantly. For the first time the figure noticed that the black cape thing that draped over the pale warrior's right shoulder and arm had been fashioned to resemble the wing of a crow or perhaps shadow eagle.

The figure sneered. "You're good, I'll give you that. Let's see how good you really are." The vengeful shadow adjusted his grip on his katana, readying his opening move. His pale opponent only smiled faintly, and he felt a shiver go down his spine.

"Yes. There it is." He said, still sneering. "The thrill of battle. Now, prepare yourself."

The figure focused his ki, gathering it in his secret eighth chakra: his blade. Then, planting his feet firmly on the tile, he let out a mighty war cry. "ROARING TIGER SURPRISE IAIDO KENJUTSU ASSAULT....OMICRON!!" He followed this by pulling his naked blade from his belt loop in a lightning fast slash, only slightly hindered by the metal shearing through the top of the denim loop.

To his astonishment, his pale nemesis seemed to anticipate the strike, blocking it effortlessly. For a long moment they stood there, the figure's naked blade digging into the leather of his opponent's scabbard. The arrogant...man? Woman? He was starting to feel an uncomfortable desire to know which, exactly. The arrogant person hadn't even bothered to draw their own blade.

The figure leaned in, putting the entirety of his undeniable potency into that contact, trying to force the slim, beautiful, sheathed blade away. He might as well be trying to move a mountain, a feat he would normally need to meditate for a full six hours before attempting to accomplish. The beautiful warrior smiled a little wider, holding him at bay with one hand.

Uncharacteristically, the figure relented, rolling backwards and into a table. This was a deliberate move intended to catch his opponent off guard. Masterfully, he scrambled back to his feet again. He held his blade up in a defensive posture, eyes wary.

"Are you the son of the vampire king?" He demanded, voice brimming with fury and masculine vapors.

The pale warrior arched a delicate brow and frowned a little. Another thrill of what could only be combat-lusts ran through the figure. "In a manner of speaking. I am the Prince of this small burg."

The thrill turned sour and uncomfortable. "A prince, huh? So, uh. You're a guy?"

The Prince canted that beautiful head to one side, silvery hair falling artfully hiding one pale blue eye. "The society I am a part of calls the leader of all such communities 'Prince' no matter their gender. Or lack thereof." That smile returned and, with it, the figure's confusingly inconsistent lust for battle. The Prince continued on in a melodic voice.

"Now, what are you? A would-be being of the night, stalking the streets for nourishment and diversion from your tormented existence? Or do you fancy yourself a hunter of such? The Prince must keep track of all that come and go within their twilight demesne."

The figure gulped and looked around. For the first time he noticed dozen or so others that had been watching silently from all around. Their dress ranged from expensive, modern styles, to ornate costumes from years gone by, and several were even dressed in anarchic tatters. They were thoughtful, focused, as if watching a performance. He recognized them instantly. Since this wasn't a mall food court, they probably weren't counterculture phonies. That meant that the only thing they could be were...

"Vampires, huh? Nah. I've transcended your basal thirst for blood and penchant for black jeans worn with high leather boots. I am a sacred bladesman, but sacred in an atheistic sense." His old sneer returned. "Call me a hunter, then, if you need to call me anything at all."

"I am usually referred to as The One-Winged Prince, but you may call me Blair, hunter. I would know your name, if you wish to grant it."

The figure frowned at this. Usually, folks accepted his nameless status with a submissive beta roll of the eyes. But this was a worthy foe and he really wanted to talk to this Prince again. Er...fight. Yes! Fight. That's what he meant.

"Uhhh...You can call me Lor...um. Lorence. Wolfcry." He smiled inwardly, pleased at the cleverness of his little ruse. His True Name would remain known only to him. And Alex. And Mee Maw. Exactly as he had planned all along.

"Well, Lorence Wolfcry. Welcome to Radical Nighttime. We do hope you come and play with us again soon. But for now, it is time for you to go. We usually meet on Fridays at seven. You're welcome to join us again, then."

The figure faded back into the shadows with a definitive "Yeah...Yeah, I guess, OK."

On his way home, visions of the Pale Prince danced in his mind. The Prince MIGHT be a girl. Probably was a girl. Blair was probably short for...like...Blairina or Blairsibell or something. Too pretty to be a boy, for sure. Oh, and Blair smelled so nice.

His heart raced as a terrible realization overcame him. He didn't lust for battle alone.

A true and rational Objectivist warrior was in complete control of all of his emotions at all times (which is why women weren't biologically suited to be his peers) and he had failed to meet this standard. He had transgressed against his code of honor in thought and in fact. And, back home, there was someone quite dear to him who would be devastated by this his failure. He looked into the moonless sky and shouted his panic and grief. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I've betrayed you!!"

Then, he ran sobbing into the night.

-from The Nightblade Cantical vol XXV: Alucardinal Sin

#nightblade canticle #humor #cringe

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queernuck · 6 years

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Specters of Sex: Terror, Reaction, and #MeToo in Contemporary Discourses of Sexual Bodies

Discussing the #MeToo movement, as well as larger structures of discourse around sexual violence in society, inevitably leads to a discussion of the act of accusation, the blowing of the referee’s whistle that stops play, that creates the Event of accusation out of a field of play, interaction, of both conjunctive and opposing flows of libidinal power, the point at which the accusation is levied. When Kanye West rapped about it on his album ye he talked about Russel Simmons, saying that Simmons got “#metoo’d” before “wondering” about how he would handle the same, if it happened to “me, too.” On an album full of contradictions, of statements whose post-Žižek character leads to a genuine questioning of just what Kanye means to do in his musical work, in his performances, in creating and expanding a platform for himself, the way in which this presents a sort of encapsulation of how many approach the specter of sexual violence in contemporary spaces.

To concentrate first on men, a large part of the discursive flow surrounding male reaction to #MeToo (both in concept and in named examples) is encompassed by the emergence of a certain common anxiety, that expressed by Kanye: what if I, too, am accused? There have been countless arguments about this, about the means by which the accused is marked as having a certain sort of body that must be understood in a certain fashion, notions floated that #MeToo could kill dating, the film industry, the advancement of women in the workplace, humor, even the very concept of space that is not marked solely as male and a resolute promise to never venture into “female” space, into intersubjectivity with female bodies, a kind of refusal of being-at-woman’s-hand. The immediate response, of course, is the one that prevails, with good reason despite uncomfortable aesthetics. If there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear. Stating it in such a way is uncanny, in that it resembles Bush-era surveillance and the extension of evangelical sexual mores into public policy, and thus diffusing into the panoptics of state control. The same response is often used to justify attempts to regulate spaces in the name of stopping trafficking, the dissemination of child pornography, the distribution and consumption of illicit or diverted drugs. An unease at this prospect should be apparent, and moreover should raise the question of why such phrasing would be applied to an ostensibly admirable movement, even one that is largely within liberal sensibilities of action. In an attempt to recognize trauma, victimization, violence, there is often an inadvertent capitulation to the structures of carceral justice, whether in pursuing a response that is sustained through these apparatuses, or in backing away from responding specifically to avoid them.

To return to the examples listed above, the extension of prisons into hospitals, schools, other public meeting-places during the post-9/11 transition into the contemporary space of neoliberal globalization, one finds that the courses of action proposed are not about their stated goals, but rather an embodiment of the unstated, the taboo intent, the Southern Strategy of the law. It is understood that the law does not target those it explicitly targets, at least not primarily. Rather, it instead is an apparatus of deniability, such that acts of colonial violence may be justified with proper legal backing. This is the first point at which #MeToo may be distinguished from such laws and the actions taken through them. There is nothing binding about the accusations levied by victims, there is rarely even a particular call to action. Rather, it is far more akin to a confession of status as a victim, as if the victim had themselves committed the offense. The apparent-speediness with which certain punishments or apparent acts of atonement are completed, the way in which it seems to be a sort of swift justice making itself known, is in fact more likely an indication that the act of coming forward is in fact producing an event out of ongoing flows of interaction. To return to the event of the soccer match and the referee’s whistle, a metaphor proposed by Brian Massumi in discussing different concepts of potentiality within the Virtual, he describes the means by which the whistle entails a collapsing of potential, the point at which an “event” is marked and play ceases. Soccer’s running clock, of course, shows that the stoppage is not quite that, is not a stoppage proper as in other sports, but rather a means by which one may name acts and restructure their relationship to one another, to implement the process described in Deleuzean concepts of expanse and Oedipal trauma, in Heideggerian acts of phenomenological encounter, of calling to mind, acts of memory. There is a presence of the act of violence in the moment of accusation, but that is as realizing the culmination of flows that include the act that the accuser is describing, the violence and trauma they have suffered. At once it is in the moment of accusation that the trauma is realized, but insofar as one describes time in a linear fashion, as a unidirectional flow within consciousness, the realization of numerous potential pasts, spaces of potentiality, repeated and co-witnessed in the present.

The way in which a disingenuous defense regarding wrongful accusation has become such a common one points to a larger anxiety regarding the means by which #MeToo has come to the fore: it is through the realization of trauma as not a failure of the personal, but rather as a continual repetition of the initial violence through different experiences of triggering, retraumatization, a fundamental shift in the potential of one’s subjective experience that the violence at hand is named. Thus, rape and sexual assault, sexual abuse, can become something far greater than their status as singular acts, as whistles which are taken to be similarly obvious, the result of an Other, poor-in-the-world, breaking a clear prohibition. The trouble with this conceptualization of abuse and assault is that it acts to exclude the vast majority of abusive behaviors, the means through which abuse is not only realized but the surrounding structure of enabling, justification, and acceptance that is so deeply embedded within the acts of sexing and gendering the body that they effectively form its most violent realization, are ontologically linked to it. So many of the punishments surrounding the prohibitions of gender, transgressions thereof, and regulating them, ensuring they will not be repeated, are based in sexual violence that it is understood any act of sexual violence will be justified as an ironic mirroring of the violent act, as justified by this or that transgression. But the singular conceptualization, the narrow marking of violence as such, is flawed specifically because it requires creating singular actors, singular acts of trauma, the impossibility of re-victimization.

The fundamental recognition, then, that must be made is the one that is most feared, the one rejected by such criticisms of #MeToo as a specter of unjustified accusations, female flows of libidinal energy unchecked by male measuring thereof, what happens when women are allowed to assert their bodies as such, to make a counterclaim against the sexual striation of their body, the traumatic collapsing of their body into a collection of organs as fetish-objects. That so much of harassment is constituted not by actions that cross the threshold into rape or sexual assault, but rather by the assertion of certain spaces of potential by men who will never realize such potential, men who are asserting that a woman’s body can realize these things even if not with them, even if not in relation to them, becomes clear as the fundamental problem. That these acts are so often understood as simply a “part” of masculine identity, of what makes maleness coherent, the regulatory function against women becomes clear. These acts are part of a larger arrangement of sexual violence that has become part of culture in a fundamental fashion, which is then realized in the fear that without realization, without the whistle of accusation, one has engaged in unacceptable conduct already, is already marked and simply waiting for others to realize it. It is an acceptance of understanding combined with a rejection of responsibility, a kind of acknowledgement that the paradigms of sexual violence are foundational to realizing gendered structures of interaction.

Of course, there are fears that a reversal of this, an accusatory process of targeting that specifically reinforces violence through the accusation of sexual abuse in order to open up a body to a sexualized process of response, will be realized, but it is not terribly difficult to realize that this fear is one unlikely to be visited on many who would vocalize it in opposition to #MeToo. White womanhood is sexually violent in that it constitutes a specific sexualization and gendering of white supremacist ideology, and the means by which accusations of sexual impropriety have been used in order to target black men is undeniable. The disparity at hand is one that is essentially racialized, that is realized not through gender or sex themselves, but rather takes gender and sex and creates them as a sort of structure of intersubjectivity within whiteness. This is an established tactic of white supremacist violence, one that does not even necessitate action by any white woman in particular, that can merely be realized and justified on behalf of the ideal of the white woman, as a protection of the space that white women occupy. It becomes clear that this is not about wrongful accusation, but rather about providing a fantasy from which the libidinal flows of white supremacist violence may pour.

There are numerous fantasies that are used in order to justify violence that speaks breathlessly of sexuality, and homophobia, transmisogyny, the violence of heteronormative ideology and the codification of homosexuality as a structure of taboo, of a limit upon the homosocial and homoerotic, as a means of prohibition of gay, lesbian, transgender identities and acts of affinity or identification is thus often sexualized, in a fashion that leads to the use of accusations of violent harassment, sexual abuse, or other actions simply based on identity. That this possibility must be considered, that the ideation of the predatory nature of such identities is so deeply ingrained in the language surrounding them that realizing one’s identity almost inevitably means dealing with the question of predators in one’s community, contact with such predators, an acceptance of their presence as undeniable and an attempt to understand exactly how to protect oneself from them is a common experience in LGBT communities. The means through which individuals may be traumatized and still act in an abusive fashion, may slip into abusive relationships, may undergo an Oedipal act of retraumatization and themselves pass on ideology that retains the harmful character of this predatory structure, that retains a predatory notion of acceptability in sexuality, must be dealt with. However, it will not be dealt with by simply accepting that these identities, trans women often targeted with particular vitriol, are themselves predatory and in need of repression, sublimation into nothingness. Instead, a critical examination of sexuality and sexual norms, sexuality as a process of expression and growth and intersubjectivity must be fostered. That there are predatory, violent trans women who indeed are rapists and moreover must be exposed as rapists is not to be allowed to become a justification for transmisogynist violence, especially given that trans women are so often the victims in these situations. By adapting ideological defenses of white womanhood to the structure of sex, by taking white supremacist ideology and resignifying it in a certain radical feminist language, TERFs manage to take an aesthetic of liberation and transfigure it into a political program a few steps away from traditionalist and reactionary ideology, as seen in the friendship between such groups and their convergence on the question of trans women. This is not accidental, it is specifically because of the fascist character of both ideologies at hand.

Accusation, then, can indeed be used as a tool of violence. A tool of terror, even. But what is to be done in response? How must one live if one understands that shifting perceptions regarding genuine experience of trauma means that one has likely in some way contributed to ideology that reinforces sexual violence at the very least? A process of atonement, reconciliation, of being able to face the Other and reach toward a transcendent expression of commitment must be the primary goal. The ways that sexualized performances of affect, affinity, the processes of realization of sexual desire are tied to so many flows of trauma both located after, before, and within the potential-space of expressing sexuality means that any navigation of sexuality will be fraught. It will, in some way, be overcoded by a language of sexuality that implies certain relationships to white supremacist notions of gendered and racialized appearance, the Oedipal implementation of sexuality as a kind of incestuous act that centers around a conceptual family to-be, a fetishization of the family as a result of sexual encounter, the traumas of doubt and uncertainty and unconscionable change that sexuality realizes, these are the forces at work. Sexuality is complex, and being able to recognize this complexity is all but useless because simply recognizing it does not mean exemption from it.

What, then, of terror? In Lenin 2017, Žižek’s introduction describes one of Robespierre’s final speeches, where the question of revolutionary terror is discussed in detail. Žižek, knowing the answer, poses the question of how Robespierre can deal with the lurking possibility of revolutionary terror turning on him. Rather than offering a defense, Robespierre justifies it by embracing it, by claiming that if it were to turn on him, if he were to be a target of such terror, it would be a justified and fit end. In this way, one should begin to fashion a response to many of the anxieties offered over accusations of sexual misconduct, of processes of correcting violence done through sexual acts of all different magnitudes. Accepting this, accepting the possibility of punishment, the condemnation that results, is, in a sense, the most apt response because it not only recognizes the violence of a given action but takes with utmost seriousness the notion that one can commit such actions without even realizing how they cross the threshold into violence, how violence is repeated without either subject quite realizing. Referring back to intentionally targeting accusations based on race, gender, sexuality, one must of course account for the magnitude and character of accusations when responding. But this is the sort of space that demands a response, and demands one that leaves no room for misinterpretation. Restructuring discourses on sexual assault in order to prevent accusations that turn out to be incorrect, when such accusations are not only rare but largely dictated by circumstances that are vastly different from the ones proposed by those steering such a discourse, must be avoided. Instead, an entirely new concept of sexuality, of exactly what sexuality constitutes, must be the basis for a continuing development of language that can deal with the traumatic and experiences of traumatization.

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charleskenny · 3 years

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Pixar's 'Soul': Hollow and Rotten on the Inside

For all that ‘Soul’ has going for it, the end result just doesn’t do the concept the justice it deserves, and a story about personal fulfillment leaves a hollow, bitter aftertaste.

Warning: potential spoilers below.

‘Soul’ is a welcome kind of film: original, from a creative studio known for taking risks, and it attempts to grapple with some pretty sophisticated themes for a kid’s film. All good and increasingly rare traits in a film landscape littered with franchises, sequels, and spin-offs. The film follows Joe Gardiner, “a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn’t quite gone the way he expected. His true passion is jazz — and he’s good. But when he travels to another realm to help someone find their passion, he soon discovers what it means to have soul.” (Rotten Tomatoes)

While watching this film, instead of being drawn in, I found myself asking various questions that started to peel back the facade of the movie:

Why do I care about Joe Gardiner?

Why do I care that he hasn’t achieved his dream?

How is he developing over the course of the film?

What am I learning?

How do I feel at the end?

Joe Gardiner

Every film asks its audience to care about the characters onscreen. They are introduced, encounter a problem, and you then follow along to see how said character resolves their problem and what it holds for their future life. In ‘Soul’ the reasons to care about Joe are, well, muddled at best.

Is he likeable? Yes. Is he good-natured? Sure. Is he happy? No, and therein lies the rub. Joe is not happy in his job or where he is in life; common traits in protagonists sure, but the reasons (implied or explicit) are firmly projected onto the world around him. Joe’s failures are nothing to do with him and everything to do with others who’ve never given him a chance, who’ve never believed in him, or who’ve actively stood in his way. His talent is undeniable so it can’t be his fault that he hasn’t succeeded; it must be other people’s fault, right? If only they gave him his shot!

Doesn’t this make Joe selfish?

Now he does learn the negative aspects of his actions and beliefs by the end of the film, and his selfishness is far from unique in filmmaking. In this film though, it means we have to watch a proto-jerk for almost 90 minutes as he lies, cheats, and finagles his way back to where he thinks he deserves to be before it sinks in.

Why should I care about a character so clearly self-centred, selfish, and devious? It could be because that’s how the story needs to be told, but that doesn’t mean that’s where the character needs to start from!

Joe’s Dreams

Joe is upset that he hasn’t achieved his dreams.

Do you have dreams? Perhaps you do, or more likely, you did. Not achieving dreams is a fact of life for better or worse. Pretty much everyone fails to achieve the dreams they set out to achieve. This makes Joe’s predicament harder to relate to. We are expected to sympathise with him not in his situation at the start of the film, but rather once his opportunity starts to slip away; a key difference.

Factors far beyond his control carve out this predicament and Joe’s single-minded determination to overcome them reek of the same delusional self-important hubris that permeates the air in Silicon Valley. The fact that he does, eventually, realise the error in his ways does not excuse the fact that he spends almost the entire film doing otherwise and STILL gets to actually achieve his dream of playing jazz with a famous saxophonist; even if it is only once.

It’s also a shame that all of Joe’s failures happen offscreen. He’s been gigging for years, but we are only privy to the culmination of all that; not the recurring drudgery. We’re also not privy to all of Joe’s attempts to get back up after he’s been knocked down by more earthly forces. What is Joe actually made of, and how is that driving his ambition to achieve his dreams?

Again, we don’t know because we aren’t shown it. How badly does he want his dream? No really, how badly does he want his dream? If he wants it bad enough he doesn’t want to die then that is one heck of a low bar. There’s a pot roast in my slow cooker right this minute and I also don’t want to die before it is ready. But if I fought against death for it, would you also believe in me without knowing how much effort I put into making it in the first place?

Joe’s Personal Development (?)

Is Joe a substantially changed character by the end of the film? Honestly, we don’t know since the film ends right after his revelation. Is he going to be a better music teacher? He was already pretty dedicated to begin with, even without being consciously aware of it. Is he going to be a better jazz musician? Again, he’s already quite accomplished so probably not.

More importantly, is he the one driving the change? NO! Number 22 develops Joe’s character for him when they’re in his body. It’s only after the fact that Joe catches on. Joe doesn’t evolve as a character, he benefits from an upgrade. He cheats!

Learning (or lack thereof)

‘Soul’ attempts to impart a lesson. That lesson is that achieving your dreams is not really going to make you happy but appreciating the small things in life will.

Now this is a fine lesson except that the message is coming from a multi-million dollar film produced by one of the largest media corporations on the planet whose sole (heh heh) mission is to produce content that releases the serotonin in your brain and prompts you to open your wallet and part with your hard earned cash. Can I take the film’s lesson to heart? Should I take the film’s lesson to heart?

No. Believing in dreams and succeeding is what keeps Hollywood in business. Appreciating the small things in life also runs contrary to contemporary commercial and materialistic notions of happiness that, make no mistake, Disney and Pixar actively engage in as they do with this film, which in total irony, demands the viewers complete attention to the detriment of their real-world surroundings and actual lives. The audience receives Joe’s personal awakening while actively failing to apply it to themselves.

Feels < Reals

Before we get to the point of this section, it must be noted that the film was planned and mostly produced prior to the COVID-19 epidemic. The change in circumstances leaves the film and its message a bit tone deaf to current realities through no fault of its own. Plenty of dreams are getting pushed to the back burner to make way for more pressing concerns such as making the rent or finding a job.

That being said, separating the themes from current circumstances is difficult. As much as the audience may want to be reassured that their lives are special, ‘Soul’ feels like a bit of a lecture on the subject instead of a compassionate discussion. Heck even Joe has his lesson literally yelled at him at the end of film.

The freeform spirit of jazz is presented with a shiny, polished veneer as if to say ‘this is what jazz is’. Why can’t the audience be left to interpret that themselves? New York City is gloriously rendered and animated. but that city is the definition of defying expectations. You can animate it all you want, but you’ll never capture the spontaneous events that touch the lives of its inhabitants in unique ways.

Which begs the question of why Pixar went to all the trouble and effort to animated the city and human characters in the first place? It kind of speaks to why Pixar is making films in the first place, and as I noted in my Wolkfwalkers review, showcasing the abilities of their software seems to be the higher priority than crafting a film.

Conclusion

For a film with that ought to universal, uplifting, and encouraging, ‘Soul’ fails to deliver for a host of petty reasons that are difficult to get past. the film breaks the cardinal rule of American cinema that states the audience should feel good about themselves afterward. I did not feel good, in fact, I felt irritated enough to write this post. ‘The Emoji Movie’, for all its faults, conveys its uplifting message in a simpler and more believable manner than ‘Soul’ and in contrast, actually encourages the audience to heed its message.

What is ‘Soul’s’ message? It’s not what you think, and what it is is bitter to swallow.

Originally published at https://animationanomaly.com/2021/01/04/pixars-soul-hollow-and-rotten/

#CharacterAnalysis, #CriticalAnalysis, #Disney, #Pixar, #Soul, #TheEmojiMovie

#character analysis #critical analysis #Disney #Pixar #Soul #The Emoji Movie

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psychologofeducation · 7 years

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Wellness and Psychology

Wellbeing programs are being showcased everywhere throughout the world as a panacea to precaution medication prompting great wellbeing and longer lives. Health is not for individuals who are now sick, but rather for those whose expectation is to remain well. In this paper we will investigate the idea of wellbeing from an emotional wellness point of view in which health and brain science can consolidate to offer an adjusted mental way to deal with prosperity and long haul strength.

Presentation:

What is wellbeing per sae? It is the nonattendance of disorder and a sentiment prosperity. It is not for individuals who as of now indicating symptomology for ailment, they are possibility for treatment. In a wellbeing check up, where the individual would experience a battery of physical tests, it is just in the event that they pass and are solid that they are a reasonable contender for a health program. In the event that anytime they come up short a part of good wellbeing then they turn into a patient in the feeling of requiring treatment for a found issue regardless of the possibility that that was not obvious before the examination.

Wellbeing programs deal with the premise that progressions to way of life and precaution measures can counteract or if nothing else limit future medical issues, this can be seen especially in DNA testing, utilized for expectations about broken qualities (those qualities that have some blame in communicating or curbing capacity later on). This can demonstrate that you are defenseless to a future likelihood of a specific sickness, for example, growth or other utilitarian issues. These are however based at a likelihood and not a distinct expectation. In this manner from a wellbeing perspective you can empower the individual to change certain way of life propensities in their present working to a more sound alternative. For instance to quit smoking, practice increasingly and eat a more veggie lover style abstain from food. This may sound clear to do regardless of the possibility that no markers exist, however the way that a DNA test uncovers a conceivable anticipated medical problem can be the spark to change, regardless of the possibility that the quality never really communicates in the prescient way. For instance you may have a high likelihood for a specific kind of skin disease however live in a northern sunless atmosphere of northern Europe, so it is very improbable that presentation to the Sun would empower the declaration of the tumor rather than living in Australia where the Sun is considerably more grounded, in reality skin growth is Australia's main executioner. There for wellbeing deterrent standpoint is additionally about direction for living about where you live as much as how you live!

What is wellbeing per sae? It is the nonattendance of ailment and a sentiment prosperity 1. (Myler 2014)

So a wellbeing program is intended to offer guidance and medicinal help to sound individuals who need to remain as such. The objective obviously is that what you spend today on great strongly practices can empower you to carry on with a long, disease free life or if nothing else limit the likelihood of genuine ailment. Without a wellbeing angle to your arranging you chance ending up sick eventually and the cost as far as time, cash and obstruction to your business and family could be grievous. Wellbeing at this moment is for the rich who can manage the cost of top notch examinations concerning their present wellbeing status thus appreciate long haul sickness shirking. The human body like any finely tuned machine works better and more if kept up and not overlooked. This is especially valid for specialists whose capacity to work regularly, for the benefit of the organization, should be careful about their wellbeing. Sick wellbeing even in the here and now can genuinely harm the organization they run. In China for instance numerous entrepreneurs micromanage the business whether huge or little, they are engaged with each choice and confide in nobody beneath them. At the point when things turn out badly they turn out to be exceedingly emotive and pushed, censuring everybody for their issues with the exception of themselves. On the off chance that they have any long haul ailment their organizations would endure because of the failure of the staff and supervisors to settle on any choices for them. This implies the organization would slow down business shrewd until the point when the proprietor had returned to wellbeing. Subsequently wellbeing for the Chinese businessperson who frequently chain smokes, drinks liquor to overabundance and over eats is a prime possibility for the program to change their way of life to keep on micromanage the business. Obviously the undeniable answer may be stop miniaturized scale overseeing and figure out how to be a superior pioneer of others.

Brain science and Wellness

To a specific degree brain science has been in front of the control in health for a few years. EAP organizations that give directing, basic episode administration and preparing have been pre-empting psychological well-being issues by offering enterprises preparing in the zones for push administration, administration instructing and emotional wellness bits of knowledge. Despite the fact that EAP (representative help programs) are receptive in the feeling of guiding pained workers with enthusiastic issues they regularly are asked by organization HR offices to give talks, introductions and workshops on various subjects, for example, versatility preparing, struggle determination, arrangements, initiative and stress administration, all wellbeing orientated in the feeling of giving training to specialists and staff with data and learning valuable in keeping a mental breakdown in the work environment. This understanding preparing can have long haul advantages to both mental prosperity and physical wellbeing. The psyche is associated the body more capably than the a different way. Despondent people are great cases of the brain making disease where there are no physical causes. Numerous ailment move toward becoming reality through the mental exercise of conviction similarly as a fake treatment can trick a man into supposing they are accepting a therapeutic mediation when in certainty they are taking a sugar/salt pill and show signs of improvement. Another illustration can be pressure achieved through anxiety that prompts solid joints, neck and shoulder issues requiring chiropractic control with a specific end goal to readdress the issue that plainly began as a mental one. Back rub spas have turned out to be so prominent now they are reasonable organizations making a gigantic measure of pay for muscle pressure caused through mental worry in the working environment.

This understanding preparing can have long haul advantages to both mental prosperity and physical wellbeing 1. (Myler 2014)

With the goal for brain science to make a precaution health program EAP organizations need to extend their present administrations to envelop convincing HR and CEO's that there is a monetary benefit to having a composed, adjusted candidly and substance workforce. Obviously EAP has constantly sold decreased leavers and less truancy where specialists are bolstered candidly sometime later. At the end of the day when a mental issue emerges it is smarter to allude the laborer to directing early and hold their work longer and all the more gainfully. However a wellbeing angle to EAP could in certainty diminish the requirement for guiding where laborers are given the aptitudes and understanding about emotional wellness far before they have a scene or episode that requires treatment.

Not at all like physical wellbeing programs, brain science is more reasonable to the conventional laborer through an EAP organization conspire. Regardless of the possibility that counseling secretly the same number of individuals do it is more efficient than physical wellbeing. There are three motivations to see an analyst, first; you are experiencing passionate turmoil, i.e., sadness or uneasiness, two; you are encountering an emergency as of now in time and need bolster lastly; you are lost in life, no feeling of reason and wish to investigate the conceivable outcomes for your life and future decisions. It is this third point can frequently be believed to be a wellbeing orientated way to deal with brain research. In any case we can go above and beyond and offer knowledge instructing and preparing to people in a precaution sense that can avoid future psychological wellness issues by giving individuals the abilities they require today keeping in mind the end goal to be stronger and ready to adapt to the enthusiastic high points and low points of life. Numerous laborer given arrangement preparing, knowledge preparing and flexibility preparing could be more ready to perceive the beginning of psychological wellness issues before they end up plainly clinical issues requiring treatment.

Mental Wellness in Practice

How might mental wellbeing really function by and by? We have a little issue ideal from the earliest starting point that is much the same as the physical health check up, more likely than not you will dependably discover something incorrectly that necessities treatment, before you can enter the wellbeing program by any means. It is very far-fetched that everybody that chooses to have a health bundle for brain science would have no issues by any means. Thusly a progression of guiding sessions would need to be directed to manage current intense subject matters frequently raised from the past. The second likely hood is that once a mental examination is directed it might raise issues that have lain torpid for quite a while that now wind up plainly communicated in the bleeding edge of the psyche. It is exceptionally impossible that any individual would be totally rationally free from enthusiastic issues or some likeness thereof whether from the past (sorrow) the present (work and home) or the future (tension inciting insight). In this manner health and brain science may start with conveying any individual to a place of adjust sincerely before a wellbeing methodology can be totally viable.

Conclusion:

Brain science and wellbeing projects can be viewed as a panacea to great psychological well-being. Health in a physical sense is both costly and comprehensive in the point of view of just rich high total assets people could truly manage the cost of the advantage of a lifetime of wellbeing support. However in mental terms EAP and strong instructing, preparing and understanding directing can have a safeguard impact to future psychological wellness prosperity at a sensible cost in examination. It is additionally exceptionally practical for organizations to help mental prosperity as a measure of good administration in decreasing non-attendance an

#physical

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cinemamablog · 4 years

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Let’s Make a Movie!

You’re probably familiar with the traditional Hollywood success story: an unlikely bunch of creative folk band together and create something full of heart and raw talent. Through their endeavor, they find both creative satisfaction and an audience of appreciative moviegoers. Everyone loves a triumphant underdog story about the empowerment that film gives storytellers who dare to embrace the medium. Movies that follow this storyline encapsulate what captivates us about movies in the first place: through film, anyone can create something that resonates with people. The Tommy Wiseau character in The Disaster Artist provides people with a baffling and joyful communal experience wherever his infamous vanity project The Room screens. The Rudy Ray Moore character in Dolemite is My Name gives the people what they want when he brings laughs, action, and sex together onscreen in his rag tag team’s first feature, Dolemite. Both films capture the anticipation, anxiety, and joy as a team works together to do the impossible: make a movie.

The Disaster Artist tells its story through an unlikely antihero: Tommy Wiseau, the eccentric filmmaker behind the so-bad-it’s-still-bad cult favorite The Room, played by a pitch perfect James Franco. (He also directed the movie.) Tommy’s best friend, Greg (played by James’ brother Dave), experiences the plot through the audience’s perspective: confused by Tommy’s self-centered shenanigans, but also in awe of his undeniable passion. Tommy hires anyone who lets him bully them into making his film on his dangerously amateur terms: shot on digital and film simultaneously over the course of weeks of production, with no air conditioning and very little concrete evidence that the finished project will ever see the light of day. And yet, despite his lack of personal accountability and often crude behavior, you can’t help but worry for Tommy when the cruel light of reality hits him on the opening night of his film: the evening’s audience (made up of his crew and their loved ones) laughs and laughs. (At him, not with him.) In an unsurprising but welcome twist, when the credits role, that same audience gives Tommy a standing ovation in honor of his hilarious movie. He gleefully accepts the applause for his failure of a Tennessee Williams homage, but success of a nonsensical comedy.

The main protagonist of Dolemite is My Name, Rudy Ray Moore, played by a lovable and beyond-Oscar-worthy Eddie Murphy, makes Tommy Wiseau look like a total narcissist. While Tommy tears down his cast and yells at his crew for the sake of his own selfish filmmaking aspirations, Rudy brings everyone together with a common goal: to make a feature length Dolemite feature for the fans of his comic act. He encourages his mentee and friend Lady Reed (a glorious Da'Vine Joy Randolph) to harness her star power in the supporting role of Queen Bee, the character in charge of Dolemite’s gang of stylish, kung fu-fighting women. The comradeship between Rudy and Lady especially stands out in contrast to the misogynistic manner in which Tommy treats his leading lady in The Disaster Artist.

I also noted while watching Dolemite is My Name that Tommy Wiseau profits from white privilege. Sure, he abuses his cast and crew, but he pursues the American dream and we can’t help but admire him for his quirky sensibility and, here’s that word again, passion. If Rudy treated the people in his life in the careless way Tommy did, would we even bother making a film about him? Society holds white men to a different standard than men of color. Which makes Dolemite is My Name all the more admirable, serving as a shining example of black excellence and innovation in the face of limitations placed on Rudy by the American film industry due to his “niche” appeal.

Regardless of the characters’ privilege or lack thereof, the audience is on their side and wishes them success in their filmmaking endeavors. Both Tommy and Rudy overcome adversity, whether its Tommy’s own unstable mental state or the limitations Rudy faces as a black man with a unique vision and very little money. The Disaster Artist and Dolemite is My Name explore the empowerment possible through the creative process, whether that’s Tommy connecting with a loving fan base or Lady Reed seeing someone who looks like her onscreen (in a positive light) for the first time. Both films inspire me to gather a group of talented friends and exclaim “Let’s make a movie!”

#critique

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sgapologetics · 5 years

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Exponential Growth!

Throughout my Christian walk there has been one area of theology that has evolved more than any other. When I was young in the faith I went from a continuationist to a cessationist. I also went from a synergist to a monergist very early in my Christian walk. This one area though, which we know as eschatology, has evolved more than once and has went from one end of the spectrum to the other. I started as a dispensational premillenialist, then went to a somewhat form of pre-wrath premillenialist, to an amillenialist, and finally settled at a postmillenialist. Now that I'm postmil I see it all over scripture and it somewhat blows my mind that I didn't see it before. This is very similar to what happened when I became a Calvinist, I saw it everywhere. In this blog post I want to deal with a couple portions of scripture that I believe are undeniably postmillenial verses.

First, let's go back to the old covenant. Looking at Daniel 2 with me let's focus our gaze onto verse 44, it states, "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." I think most commentaries agree that this prophecy, which is simply an interpretation of a dream, is speaking about the first advent of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of Christ. These kingdoms that Daniel is speaking of are the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman kingdoms. There were four kingdoms and during the last kingdom (Roman) God established His Kingdom. This is exactly what this context is talking about, the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

Notice what it says about God's Kingdom though, the text says that it will break into pieces and consume the other kingdoms and it shall stand forever! I don't know about you but if you tell me you're going to break something into pieces and consume it I don't think what is left will be that recognizable or may not even exist. In other words of you broke something into pieces and consumed it I would think that you dominated or had such an influence on whatever it was that it you controlled it. The Hebrew word for consume means to fulfill or to put an end it. Did this not happen in those kingdoms? Is Christianity still reigning today and these earthly kingdoms demolished? Yes, because God established His Kingdom and it consumed the other kingdoms and is still doing so today.

I want you to notice something else about this interpretation of the dream. This portion of breaking into pieces and consuming is an interpretation of verse 35. Let's see what verse 35 says, "Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." Notice the last phrase, "the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth!" What an awesome picture of God's Kingdom subduing and consuming the Earth! I think obviously we know that to go from a stone to a great mountain means exponential growth! If we don't think so let's go throw some great mountains or maybe go try to climb a stone. The latter would be easy and the former impossible. This shows the exponential growth of the Kingdom of God.

Our second place we'll be looking is in the New Covenant. Let's turn to Matthew 13. In this chapter Jesus is speaking in parables and coming to verses 31-33 we see two parables Jesus speaks that have the same meaning. The first one is the parable of the mustard seed and it goes as follows, "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." (Matt. 13:31-32) I know many people when they come to parables they try to teach all kinds of things but in parables they typically were used to teach one main truth, we are not to be hung up on every detail in them. For instance, we aren't to be arguing the size of mustard seeds or what kinds of birds is meant but we are to see the big picture. The big picture in this parable is clearly that the Kingdom of Heaven is going to grow exponentially. From a tiny seed to, in the words of Luke, "a great tree!" (Luke 13:19) It's very clear from the very words of Jesus that the Kingdom will grow exponentially.

The second parable in this section clearly teaches this same truth. Jesus say's, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." (Matt. 13:33) Now I'm no cook by any stretch of the word and the only thing I really know about leaven is what the Bible teaches about it. The Apostle Paul say's in another portion of scripture that, "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Gal. 5:9) So leaven starts small and consumes or grows exponentially to where the whole lump is leaven. Once again showing growth that completely makes whatever it started as to be unrecognizable. Just as the stone that turned into a great mountain, or a mustard seed that turned into a great tree, this leaven consumes the meal! This is what the Kingdom of God is like! It had small beginnings but it has and will continue to grow exponentially! Yes there may be times that it looks like the Kingdom is failing (I.e. The dark ages) but there is always a reformation!

Let me try to tie these prophecies together. Not only does scripture clearly teach this but as we look through history we see it being fulfilled. How is it fulfilled? The answer is none other than Jesus Christ and Him being the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Back in Genesis 12 God said to Abraham that through him he'd bless all the families of the Earth. Then in Genesis 13 God says to Abraham, "if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." Then in Genesis 15 God says, "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." Then in Genesis 17 God says He's going to make him the father of many nations. Then in Genesis 18 God says, "all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him." Finally in Genesis 22 God says, "I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore." I show all of this to take you to Galatians 3:29 where it says, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Remember Paul was writing to Gentiles in Galatia so the fulfillment of "the promise" wasn't only for jews but all those that are in Christ! He is the fulfillment of the seed promise! By extent all those in Him, which is an innumerable amount of saints, enjoy this blessing of the Kingdom!

Lastly, I want to see that no other eschatology can rightfully exegete these texts. Why do I say that? Well because no other eschatology sees continual growth in the Kingdom. They see a stone turning into a small mountain then turning back into a stone! They see a mustard seed start to grow into a tree then reverse back into the mustard seed! They see the Kingdom failing in this current age even though Jesus said the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us! They see the waters flowing from the temple in Ezekiel 47 come knee high then retreat! They don't see this Kingdom of God consuming the Earth in this present age! They don't ultimately see victory from the church and the spread of the gospel, they see failure!

Now for the record, I love my brethren that hold to opposing eschatology. I think I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't because I've been there. I also don't think they are somehow less than me as a citizen of Heaven. As a matter of fact I think many of them do way more than me for the Kingdom even in the midst of thinking that it's going to fail in this age. I praise God for these people and I pray they don't stop working for the Kingdom! This was not meant to be a bash on anyone just an exalting of what I believe to be a Christ honoring doctrine. A truth that He died for and raised victorious over this world! So that when He asked of His Father for the uttermost parts of the Earth His Father will answer.

"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." (Psalm 2:8)

For His glory!

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

Ten years ago, when a divided Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment includes a right to individual possession of firearms, dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens lamented that it was “a law-changing decision” that would cause “a major upheaval.”

Heller is a landmark case in many ways, not least of which for Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion, one of his most discussed and most quoted. But a close look at decisions over the past decade indicates that the case has not revolutionized judicial treatment of gun laws in quite the way that Stevens and others might have feared or gun rights supporters might have hoped.

Some gun rights advocates have suggested that’s because lower courts have been thumbing their nose at Scalia’s opinion in an act of massive resistance akin to the South’s refusal to desegregate after Brown v. Board of Education.

But Scalia’s opinion made clear that the decision would leave untouched many “longstanding prohibitions” on the use of guns. In practice, courts have concluded that these prohibitions and others like them pass constitutional muster. Our research confirms, as other research has suggested, that most Second Amendment claims fail. We also find that most fail precisely because of limitations that Heller itself places on the right to bear arms.

This finding has new relevance as Americans debate yet another school shooting, this time in Santa Fe, Texas. Many politicians, advocates, and commentators have suggested that the Second Amendment prohibits further gun regulation. But hundreds of judicial decisions from across the country indicate otherwise.

The Second Amendment, as courts have come to interpret it, undoubtedly protects a fundamental constitutional right, but it also leaves room for a potentially wide range of regulation.

Justice Stevens was right to call Heller a “law-changing decision,” and it has undoubtedly had an impact on some types of gun regulation, for example by limiting some highly restrictive public carry regulations, including public carry bans. The Court’s decision might also have had a deterrent effect on gun regulation, as it gives a powerful rhetorical tool to those seeking to prevent or roll back gun laws through the political process.

But as a matter of law, gun jurisprudence has not been turned upside down, as Justice Stevens feared. Rather, courts are finding ways to accommodate both the new individual right as well as compelling interests like public safety.

It’s not the world that gun control advocates would wish for. But it looks a lot like “normal” constitutional law. In the decade since Heller, the justices have declined dozens of opportunities to expound on the right to keep and bear arms, choosing not to grant certiorari (that is, agree to hear cases), with only two exceptions.

In 2010’s McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court made the Second Amendment applicable to state and local regulations — a significant decision in practical terms, since state and local laws constitute the bulk of firearms regulation. And in a short, unsigned 2016 opinion, the Court vacated the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s upholding of a stun gun ban.

The Court’s unwillingness to hear another gun rights case recently led a frustrated Justice Thomas, who voted with the majority in Heller, to call the Second Amendment a “constitutional orphan.”

But that’s a misreading of the evidence. the Supreme Court does not have sole responsibility for the development of constitutional doctrine. Vastly more constitutional questions are resolved in lower courts, including the federal courts of appeals, than in the Supreme Court. And when those courts reach agreement on legal issues, the justices are generally less inclined to intervene.

Those lower courts have resolved more than 1,000 Second Amendment challenges in the past 10 years. This makes it possible, even as the Supreme Court stays above the fray, to say something about the law governing the right to keep and bear arms.

In our new study, we coded every available Second Amendment decision (state and federal, trial and appellate) from Heller through February 1, 2016. For each individual Second Amendment challenge, we asked roughly 100 questions about the content of the challenge, the result, and the court’s methodology. We assembled more than 100,000 data points, allowing us to paint a picture of where Second Amendment law stands today.

Any time a litigant raises a Second Amendment claim, he or she is arguing that a particular government action, typically a gun regulation, is unconstitutional. It is by now well-recognized that the vast majority of these claims have failed, and our data confirms it. Gun rights and gun regulation groups both regularly note this fact — though they draw very different conclusions.

Successful Second Amendment challenges by court system. Blocher and Ruben

For advocates of strong gun rights, the low success rate is fodder for the view that courts are hostile to the Second Amendment. Scholars, too, sometimes suggest that lower courts are flouting Scalia’s opinion or narrowing it from below.

Our data suggests alternative explanations, beginning with the objective weakness of many Second Amendment claims.

The merit, or lack thereof, of a Second Amendment challenge obviously correlates with success or failure. Strong claims should succeed at a higher rate than weak ones.

That may sound tautological, but a closer look at the data suggests that lower courts are using Heller to judge which claims are strong and which are weak. To be sure, “strength” and “weakness” will often be a matter of opinion, but the language of Heller makes it clear that some kinds of claims are flawed from the outset. Indeed, 60 percent of the judicial decisions in our data set quote, at least in part, the passage in Scalia’s opinion in which he explains that the Second Amendment, “[l]ike most rights, … is not unlimited.” Scalia went on to write:

Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

This language from Heller gives constitutional blessing to a potentially wide range of regulation. So it should be unsurprising that the vast majority of the cases citing it go on to reject the Second Amendment claim and uphold the challenged law. Even when courts do not explicitly cite this particular passage in upholding gun laws, they often rely on other precedents that do so. That explains why the percentage of cases citing it has been steadily declining, as courts start to cite their own prior decisions that incorporate Heller’s list of exceptions.

The frequency of citations to the “longstanding prohibitions” passage helps explain why the success rate for Second Amendment claims is so low. For example, 24 percent of the challenges in our set are to felon-in-possession laws, which Scalia specifically singled out as appropriate; of those, 99 percent are losers.

What’s more, nearly three-quarters of the challenges in our data set — 742 of 1,153 — involve criminal cases, where the success rate of constitutional claims can be expected to be lower. Unlike civil litigants, who may have a choice of whether to be in court at all, and who are more likely to be paying their own lawyers, criminal defendants facing serious charges have every incentive to make whatever arguments they can get away with.

That kind of kitchen sink approach, combined with the fact that many criminal laws involving guns fall within the categories Scalia identified, lead to a low rate of success of Second Amendment claims in criminal cases: 6 percent overall.

Our data shows that courts deciding Second Amendment challenges are drawing on tools common to other areas of constitutional law. This suggests that courts are normalizing the post-Heller Second Amendment and treating it like other constitutional rights: It’s subject to exceptions, some of which are derived from history, and to regulations that further certain important government interests. Courts continue to give considerable weight to the undeniable public safety concerns that animate most gun regulation.

In the immediate aftermath of Heller, it was not clear what form of doctrine would apply to the Second Amendment. But the 1,000 cases since Heller show courts using the basic tools of analysis familiar to constitutional lawyers.

Borrowing in part from First Amendment doctrine, for example, almost every federal court of appeal has adopted a two-part test that first asks whether the relevant person, weapon, or activity falls within the scope of the Second Amendment. As noted above, hundreds of Second Amendment cases — those involving felons or people with mental illness, for example — lose at this step.

Concealed carry, too, has been excluded from constitutional coverage, in keeping with Scalia’s observation in Heller that “the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.”

If the case makes it past step one, the courts go on to ask whether the challenged law is constitutional in light of both the burden it imposes on the right to keep and bear arms and the public interest it furthers.

Even at this point, plaintiffs asserting a right to bear arms face a high hurdle because the public interest in these cases is almost always public safety: Weapons, and especially lethal weapons, pose an obvious risk if misused.

That’s not to say that every law will be properly tailored to further that public interest, and the laws that have been struck down have tended to be those that are overbroad or otherwise go “too far.” In Moore v. Madigan, for example, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit struck down Illinois’s statewide ban on public carry.

But just as in other areas of law, judges in Second Amendment cases tend to give some deference to the policy choices and expertise of elected officials.

As a matter of methodology, then, the Second Amendment looks increasingly like “normal” constitutional law, which in turn can explain one reason so many challenges to weapons laws fail.

A two-part test has become common in Second Amendment cases. Blocher and Ruben

We have argued elsewhere, including at Vox, that discussions about the scope and strength of the Second Amendment should take account of local and regional variation when it comes to gun rights and regulation.

In keeping with those arguments, our data set shows that in the decade since Heller, Second Amendment challenges (and successes) are not evenly distributed throughout the country. Two courts, the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, account for about one-third of the challenges in the federal courts of appeal. Four states account for 68 percent of the state appellate challenges.

Gun rights advocates have had more success in those courts, both in absolute terms and proportionally. The most obvious cause of this regional variation is that the circuits and states with the most Second Amendment litigation, and the most Second Amendment successes, are those that already have comparatively stringent gun control. Federal laws apply nationally and impose some important restrictions (including the felon ban discussed above), but in many parts of the United States, there simply aren’t many gun laws to challenge.

That again helps explain the low success rate of Second Amendment litigation; there simply isn’t a lot of low-hanging fruit for gun rights litigators. The Second Amendment doesn’t have much work to do, it appears, because gun politics prevent most stringent regulations from being enacted in the first place. When DC’s and Chicago’s handgun bans were struck down in Heller and McDonald, for example, they were the only two such laws on the books in major American cities.

That suggests that gun laws in the US face political hurdles as much as they do constitutional hurdles.

Despite the overall failure rate, litigation rates have not decreased in the 10 years since Heller. That’s surprising in many ways. Since Heller represented a sea change in the law, one might expect an initial spike in litigation, as gun owners rushed to test the constitutionality of existing laws and the breadth of the Court’s holding. (The lawsuit that led to McDonald was filed the day Heller was decided.)

That surge would establish the new contours of the law, after which lawsuits would decrease as regulators and litigants came to accept the new status quo. Similarly, one might expect a high rate of initial success in those challenges, as gun laws across the country first became subject to the “individual right” reading of the Second Amendment, followed by a tapering off of success as those laws were struck down.

However, litigation rates remained consistent and high, and the rate of success increased during the period of our study. Our data alone cannot explain these counterintuitive trends, but it is possible that some litigants have failed to internalize consensus about what makes for a successful challenge, while others have adapted to bring better cases.

Others, perhaps, are content to fling themselves against Heller’s limitations and to hold up their failures as evidence that they must try harder — winning politically by losing in court.

Blocher and Ruben

The Second Amendment remains fertile territory for constitutional litigation and scholarship. The Second Amendment still faces foundational uncertainties with regard to a wide range of doctrinal and theoretical questions — far more so than the First Amendment, which has generated a century’s worth of case law and scholarship. For lawyers and scholars interested in the Second Amendment, this is an exciting time.

But the Second Amendment is no longer “terra incognita,” as one federal judge put it after Heller. Our data helps to map the post-Heller territory, and our hope is that it might help bring some much-needed clarity not only to the law but to the broader gun debate.

Joseph Blocher is a professor at Duke Law School. Eric Ruben is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. They are the authors of “From Theory to Doctrine: An Empirical Analysis of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms After Heller,” which appeared in the Duke Law Journal.

The Big Idea is Vox’s home for smart discussion of the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture — typically by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at [email protected].

Original Source -> The Second Amendment allows for more gun control than you think

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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yanara126-writing · 4 years

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A Death in Your Name - Penitence (3/5)

How can one mortal soul be so important to a god?

You misunderstand. I'm not Galawain or Magran, I'm not used to people dying for me.

And yet they do. Some willingly, some not.

The pain of loss unites and splits a god and an elf.

Read here or on Ao3

Have fun! Comments always welcome! :)

Today was a solemn day for the order of the true religion as a whole, and for the Eothas clergy in particular. Thick clouds of incense permeated the halls, accompanied by grieving songs and the sound of bells. All priests were clad in simple cloaks, wearing anything more opulent would have been bad taste.

It had only been days ago, that the end of the Apostate had been celebrated, now triumph had given way to shocked grief. Eothas’ high priestess had been found dead in the temple’s sanctuary, her hair brutally sheared off her skull and her own dagger in her heart.

For Thaos ix Arkannon it was... a welcome annoyance. It threw off his plans for the immediate future somewhat, but also took care of a liability. Still, it was a waste. He’d hoped the girl would overcome her doubts. Her dedication to Eothas had been a useful asset, he hadn’t made her high priestess for nothing, but obviously he’d expected too much of her. At least she’d had the decency to just kill herself, rather than follow in her sister’s footsteps.

Iovara had been a bitter disappointment, but her sister could have been an actual threat. Her position as a high priestess could have given her the edge Iovara never had. Thankfully, she’d lacked Iovara’s pure bullheadedness and so had simply broken at the revelation. Yet another proof that what he was doing was right. Not that he needed it.

He conducted the funeral himself. Usually that job would either fall to the new head of the Eothas clergy, or Berath’s high priest, but the girl had been a well-respected figure, and with her actions against the Apostate, a hero. Making a proper martyr out of her presented a good way to cement the people’s hatred against what was left of Iovara’s following.

And so, at dawn he stood before her prepared body, looking out over the masses of people, that had gathered to send her off. He spoke the rites and told them of a brave sacrifice. How she’d done her part to end the heretics and then gave her life to Eothas, to assure the gods of her continued loyalty, and for shame of having been related in this life to the Apostate, that had denied them.

After the rites the people flocked closer to pay their respects one last time, to a woman who would soon be known as Saint Emblyn, though never officially declared such. The body had been prepared accordingly by one Berathian and one Eothasian priest, as was customary for high ranking members of the church. Clad in her ornate ceremonial robes she stood out of the masses, shining like the splendid heroine she was supposed to be, a picture of pure serenity. The only thing not entirely traditional was the veil over her face, to hide the wreckage she’d made of her hair and the wounds to her scalp. No need to harm the perfect picture.

He left after the rites were completed, he had more important things to do than feign mourning a failure. Instead he intended to use this situation to his benefit and deal yet another blow.

Purposeful steps carried him down towards Breith Eaman, long robes swishing after him. The souls of the damned tugged at him, screaming their desperation into his very core, but he swatted them away like insects.

After a while of patient walking, he reached his goal. In the darkness down under, the only light source were the shining adra pillars, salvation and prison at once for the jailed souls. He stopped in front of one of them and waited. He had no doubt she’d come, patience was a virtue she’d never understood.

He was of course proven right and soon a shimmering in the air, only visible to his cipher senses, appeared, forming into the picture of an elven woman out of the ether.

“Come to gloat?”, Iovara ix Ensios asked, glaring at him and chin lifted in defiance, even in death.

“I have no need of gloating,” Thaos answered calmly. His voice resonated in the stone caves in a way Iovara’s never would again. With nimble fingers he pulled a dagger from the folds of his cloak. The blade was a rusty, brownish red, only the hilt still told of it’s original steel quality.

Iovara raised a condescending eyebrow. “Not even you can kill me again with a dagger,” she said, voice dripping with contempt.

“Ever jumping conclusions. I can see you have learnt nothing from your demise. But perhaps it will please you to know, the one responsible for it is dead.” He flipped the weapon in his hand, carefully avoiding the stained blade, showing it to her. Technically she had no eyes anymore to look at it, but he wanted to make sure she understood.

Iovara looked first at him, then at the dagger, confusion clear on her face. But then she paled, understanding setting in, as she recognized the weapon in his hand and the insinuation. She took a step back, a now obsolete reflex setting in.

“You... you wouldn’t have... She was loyal to you!” She shouted the last sentence at him, her phony body trembling. A mixture of emotions was displayed on her features, shock, disbelieve and anger taking the forefront.

“Obviously not enough. But no, I didn’t, she took care of that herself. Your ‘truth’ broke her so much, she couldn’t bear to live with it anymore. And so, she dedicated her death to same god she devoted her life to. In a rather impressive display, really.” Contrary to his words, Thaos personally scorned the former high priestess’ methods. Though it served his purpose well enough, it was a tasteless show of melodrama.

Thaos carelessly threw the bloodied dagger to the spectre’s feet. “You can rot down here for eternity, knowing that you drove the last person you loved to suicide, and that she will be heralded as a martyr for everything you stood against.” He didn’t wait for her reply, he’d done what he’d come for. And he should be back for the lighting of the pyre at dusk.

Iovara watched her former mentor leave into the darkness of Breith Eaman and wanted to cry, not that she really still could. Not for him, never for him, but for the sister she’d lost. Technically he could have been lying, but what would have been the point? He could have tortured her just as much with the knowledge of her sister’s continued servitude to the false gods. Although, now that she stood before the choice, she’d have much rather Emblyn be still alive and happy, even if it meant she’d go against every one of Iovara’s believes.

Even after all that had happened, Iovara couldn’t hate her sister. She couldn’t, and most likely wouldn’t ever, understand her choices, she was sad about what their relationship had become, and for a while she had even been angry, but hate eluded her.

Even long after Thaos had left, Iovara retained her corporeal form. There was no one around to see her and her senses worked just fine without it, but her death was only a few days past and habits die hard, unlike bodies.

The dagger on the floor before her adra prison felt like a gravestone, though whose she wasn’t certain. It was a well calculated, cruel mockery of Thaos to leave it there. She had no hands anymore to pick it up and throw it away, or even eyes to turn in another direction, though she still pretended to, so there was no way for her to remove it from her perception, forever forced to be aware of the weapon that had supposedly taken her sister’s life. A weapon Iovara had given her herself, on the last day they’d met in peace.

Iovara didn’t know how long she remained there, her perception of time lost to the darkness both around and in her, and only the howling of the other damned souls in the distance for company. Desperation gnawed at her, desperation to know if it was true, if her little sister had really spent her last seconds despairing and alone, because of Iovara’s choices. But no one would tell her, no one could tell her, because the only one who could possibly know, was the one claiming it. Except maybe...

For the first time since she’d left the order, Iovara felt her determination waver. Doing this would go against everything she’d lived and died for, and there was no guarantee it would even work, but she couldn’t just simply leave it, if there was even the slightest hope for certainty. She remembered what Thaos had said, before she’d been pushed down the hole. The gods hear everything... And if Emblyn had been right, there might even be one who’d answer.

“Eothas,” she spoke into the darkness. It wasn’t a question. She might be desperate enough to speak to a phony god, but she wouldn’t submit to him, not even with words.

For a while nothing happened. The adra around her shimmered in the same green, the darkness unbroken, aside from the quiet howling in the background. Iovara was ready to give up and wait for Thaos to return to try and grill him for details, no matter how futile an attempt, when the adra suddenly lit up, filling the stone tunnels with more light than had ever been down here. A presence, far heavier than Iovara had ever felt before, spread through the stony tunnels.

Do you wish to repent? The adra flickered in time with the steady words, creating an eerie atmosphere, that was somehow both enhanced and hindered by the calm softness of the voice. The voice itself didn’t resonate, much like hers, but the room was filled with an undeniable energy, that vibrated deep in her soul.

Iovara flinched and bristled, but remembered why she’d called him in the first place. Angering him wouldn’t get her any answers. So instead of snapping at him like she wanted, she pushed down her anger, until it only showed in the tightness of her voice.

“You know I don’t. I want answers.” There was a short silence and the god seemed to debate his response. Or maybe he just wanted to seem more dramatic, Iovara wouldn’t be surprised.

What makes you think I will give them? The tone was completely neutral and entirely inoffensive. Iovara didn’t believe it for a second.

“If you’re even half the god, or even person, my sister thought you to be, you will.” Iovara really tried not to be confrontational, she really did, but she also had no patience for this. “But if you’re a hypocrite like the rest of them, please prove me right, oh god of truth.”

Again, silence reigned over the room. The only sign he hadn’t just left was the strange lighting that remained. If Iovara still had them, she would be tapping her feet with impatience. As it was, she refrained from doing so, the wrong sound of her voice was unsettling her enough already.

Finally, after a time that felt like an eternity, the voice returned. My answer will depend on your question. What a convenient out for him, but Iovara supposed it was better than nothing. He could have simply ignored her (like Woedica had, when she’d still had hope).

She wanted to ask then. If her sister was really dead, if she’d done it because of her, with the weapon Iovara had given her. She couldn’t. No matter how much she tried, the words wouldn’t form into the sentences she willed them into.

In the end she settled on: “Is it true, what Thaos said?”

The adra crystals flickered stronger and the atmosphere suddenly tightened. Iovara felt her grip on her corporeal form slip, as the essence all around was pushed away by an enormous force. For the first time Iovara was scared of what she meddled with, as she felt the true magnitude of what the Engwithans had created.

The push ended as abruptly as it had started and the room was as calm as before, as if nothing had happened. Iovara was shaken to the core, the tearing hadn’t exactly been painful, but so insistent that she had no doubt, she wouldn’t be able to stop him, if he desired her gone.

She didn’t understand what had triggered it. Surely he’d already known what she was about to ask and if he’d wanted to demonstrate his power, shouldn’t he have done it already?

Very little that man says can be considered true. Iovara flinched when the god spoke again, tensing in useless defence. He was as calm as before, but the voice had taken on a cooler, harder tone. But the one you knew as Emblyn ix Ensios is dead.

Those words were enough to shatter what remained of Iovara’s world. She’d driven her little sister to suicide. If only she’d taken Emblyn with her that day. Surely she could have found a way to convince her... But she’d been too angry then, to think of anything but leaving, and later too arrogant to realize, that her little sister had grown up and wouldn’t just simply follow her anymore.

She wanted to fall to her knees, sob, and tear her hair out, and perhaps she did in a way. What was the point in keeping up appearances, like a body? She was dead, and now there was no one who’d care anymore. Everyone she’d ever loved was dead. Her surroundings faded to her own crushing sadness, giving way to the swirling greys of the aether.

It wasn’t your fault. Suddenly she was back, grounded in a reality she didn’t want. The partial darkness of Breith Eaman greeted her again, and so did the anger.

How dare this fraud think himself entitled to lay or take blame?! None of this was his to decide! Nothing was!

“And how would you know?! You obviously didn’t help her!” Neither had she, but hating him was easier than facing that. Oh, and how much she hated him. For how he’d given Emblyn and all the others false hope, for something that was never true to begin with. For how he’d let her die...

You are right. I was too late. The solemn admission startled her. Never had she heard of any god admitting a mistake, and the idea that they even could was... strange. Yet she couldn’t doubt his sincerity, though she tried. There was something in the flat way he’d said it, and the suddenly dimmer light around her that made her think, maybe he did actually care, at least a little.

But then Iovara remembered who she was talking to. This wasn’t just a simple bystander, he’d had every opportunity to do something, anything, to stop it, and he hadn’t used any of them. Rage flooded her, making the edges of her form fizzle as she lost focus. But before she could do something (as if there was anything she could do), he continued, his tone aloof, yet drenched in a sadness that Iovara felt deep in her core.

I only noticed when she called on me, and by then I could not help her anymore. But she did not want you to suffer, so it is for her sake that I assure you, it was not because of your actions, that she did what she did.

“How would you even know that? If she... if you...!” Iovara had never had trouble finding the words, but this time language failed her.

I felt it. That answer was so prompt, it jarred her out of her anger and she stared at the shining adra crystals in confusion.

“You what?” A charged silence followed, and Iovara wasn’t certain if it was just her frustration or something else that made air feel so tight. Then suddenly something uncoiled and the light turned warm and dim.

It is my duty to bring about a new turn of the Wheel for the souls whose mortal forms have passed. But sometimes those souls are... damaged. Either by multiple small moments over the course of many lives, or by one terrible, traumatic event. Most of the time those souls naturally split up or join with others, but at times they are too broken to survive the Wheel.

Are terrible sense of dread overcame Iovara. Why was he telling her that? Did that mean Emblyn could not even be reborn? She wanted him to stop, but at the same time she had a sick desire to know.

Occasionally I... shelter those souls, until they have healed enough to re-join the cycle. The voice trailed off, almost as if he didn’t dare continue. The insinuation was clear nonetheless.

Iovara stared into the air around her, not really seeing anything, as she let those words sink in. Her anger fizzled out and the reality he’d just described was impressed on her mind. Not only had her sister been desperate enough to take her own life, she’d broken so horribly, that the Wheel would have ground her soul into dust, had the god before her not intervened.

It was a lot harder to hate him now. Harder, but not impossible. Resentment for him and his kind still burned hot at her core, but now it was accompanied by a grudging, more personal gratitude. For some reason it never even occurred to her that he could be lying. Perhaps Emblyn’s unending faith in him had rubbed off on her more than she’d thought.

She tried to say something, anything, perhaps even thank him, but no words wanted to form. The conflict inside her didn’t allow for any expression of either gratitude or anger to be made, and so she settled on a non-committal hum.

Eothas seemed to understand anyway, and didn’t pressure her for an answer. The crystals lit up softly, creating almost the illusion of a nod.

Another silence reigned over the room, less tight than before, but heavy with things left unsaid.

Something still bugged her, something that had nothing to do with Emblyn’s reasoning, but rather with his.

“Why her? What made her so special, that you’d go out of your way to talk to me, the declared enemy of all religions?” Iovara loved her sister, she really did, and she could understand a certain amount of favouritism, but why a god would bother with her, even for Emblyn’s sake, she couldn’t understand.

There was a slight tug on her essence, not harsh like before, but rather like a slight breeze. For a second Iovara resisted, but then her curiosity won out and she gave in, letting the energy tug her away from the darkness of the moment.

What she found were flashes of pictures, each a moment of Emblyn’s life. Her kneeling before an altar, tears on her face and asking for forgiveness. Her before the same altar, nervously putting a candle on it. Her making another candle, tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration. Her standing at a window, looking out at the dawn with a smile.

Iovara watched as Emblyn grew older and more comfortable with each picture, and saw just what she’d missed of her sister’s life, while she was off, living her own.

The pictures were strangely tinted, not really with colours, but coloured emotions. The first were in a grey, polite indifference, that slowly grew lighter as a slight fondness started blooming. It stayed like that for a while, but then a few things changed. Emblyn grew more confident and started actively helping people. On her mission, she didn’t stay in her little church to preach, but rather went outside to aid the people with her hands as well as tongue.

The tint grew into a curious affection, as Iovara watched Emblyn happily teach a group of children to read using Eothasian prayers. Another time she wove clothes with the women of a village, while telling stories. By the time Emblyn returned to the temple and was consecrated as high priestess, a loving respect coloured the pictures.

The stream of images came to a sudden stop, and Iovara found herself back in her prison, jarred and disappointed at the abrupt end.

She asked, and listened when I answered. That deserves a reward. Eothas’ voice lacked any of the emotions she’d just seen. It was a cool, factual statement, as if it was merely a matter of transaction, and Iovara could only stare, completely bewildered. Who was he trying to fool?

Or perhaps... did he not know, that she had seen these moments? Well, if he decided to be difficult about this, so would she, and for once she had the advantage.

“A reward? So what, you approve of her killing herself? Is that one of the things they teach in your clergy?” She knew it wasn’t, but she wouldn’t let him get away with half-truths if she could. The fact that he’d already been far more forthcoming than any other god was not going to stop her from needling the truth out of him. Emblyn deserved better. Iovara deserved better.

You misunderstand. I am not Galawain or Magran, I am not used to people dying for me. That sentence ended their almost truce immediately. If Iovara had been petty with her annoyance before, she was furious now. Eothas’ almost defensive tone only served to make her angrier.

“Oh no, you don’t get to say that! People were murdered in your name!” She practically shouted the words, her figure flickering again with unsuppressed fury. She didn’t remember throwing her arms out or stepping further into the caves, yet there she stood, hands balled into fists, glaring at the shining adra. “I was murdered for you!”

That was never my intention. There was something defeated in those words, as if he’d said them a million times already, and was tired of it, though to who, Iovara could only imagine. Not that she wanted to. Her grudging respect for him had fizzled away. Of course he was just like the rest of them, denying responsibility for the atrocities committed in their names.

For Emblyn, she reminded herself, for Emblyn. And so, she reigned her anger in, accepted his answer and stepped back. She didn’t hide her distaste, she doubted she would be able to anyway, but refrained from further provoking him. Iovara turned away from the cave system and the luminous crystals to face her own, personal prison. A purely symbolic gesture, neither of them had an actual physical form, yet the intent behind it was obvious.

Eothas seemed to accept her dismissal, the light in the adra slowly dimming and the weight of his presence lifting.

Before he was gone completely, he stopped. A sliver of light separated from the crystal and gently moved towards her, or rather towards something before her. With a start Iovara remembered the bloody dagger, just as it started to glow softly.

“Leave it,” she told him, voice hard and cool. “It’ll serve as a reminder.” A reminder of what, she wasn’t sure herself. Perhaps she just wanted to deny him this one last thing. The glow let up and vanished again.

I will not let her come to harm. She gave him no reaction, but he didn’t seem to expect one. The words just hung in the air unacknowledged, a last steadfast promise, ignoring their opposite sides.

The remaining light retreated, and soon Iovara was alone again, with only the screams of the other trapped souls for company. That, and the dagger. He’d left it, as she’d asked, and it glared up at her from it’s place in the dirt, no longer bloodied, but shining like the day she’d given it to Emblyn. A reminder indeed.

With the target of her ire gone, the fire went too, and all that was left was emptiness, and the certainty that she was going to spend eternity down here, drowned in darkness.

She finally let the illusion of her body vanish, melting into the realm between. The gravestone she’d chosen for herself remained visible for all to see, if ever someone would come, and for none to understand.

#Pillars of Eternity #eothas #Iovara #fanfiction #The Watcher #tragedy #Iovara's sister #religion #sibling lov #finding peace #thaos ix arkannon #hypocrisy #from everyone really #mourning #Watcher Favaen #(3/5)

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