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#and a lot of times women who have power are grim and burdened about it or oppressed or it's illegitimately gained
anghraine · 1 year
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I was just thinking of how fun it is when female characters are allowed to really viscerally enjoy power.
I'm thinking especially of cases when the character's power doesn't come from some MacGuffin, or a malevolent, psychologically damaging power like the Dark Side, or even an external source at all. I just really like the trope of female characters who are powerful because they're both talented and have put work into refining talent into skill, and who clearly enjoy using their very legitimate skill for their own ends, whatever the ends may be.
I was thinking of examples, and the first ones to come to mind were Korra and Kuvira from Legend of Korra, who I love both individually and as a ship. But part of the reason I enjoy both characters so much, hero and villain, is how much they enjoy being world-class benders.
Lots of people in that show are rightly confident about their power or abilities. But there's confidence and then there's the sheer enjoyment they have at being powerful benders who can and will wipe the earth with their foes, and it's just super enjoyable in this specific way I don't often see.
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kaile-hultner · 2 years
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Nihilism is so easy, which is why we need to kill it
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(I initially published this here a couple weeks ago.)
So last night it dawned on me that, after over two years of being relatively symptom-free, my depression snuck back up on me and has taken over. It’s still pretty mild in comparison to other times I’ve been stuck in the hole, but after 24 months (and more) of mostly being good to go, I can tell that it’s here for a hot minute again.
How do I know? Well, it might be the fact that I spent more time sleeping during my recent vacation from work than I did just about anything else, and how it’s suddenly really hard for me to stay awake during work hours. I don’t really have an appetite, and in fact nausea hits me frequently. I don’t really have any emotional reactions to things outside of tears, even when tears aren’t super appropriate to the situation (like watching someone play Outer Wilds for the first time). And I’ve been consuming a lot of apocalyptic media, to which the only response, emotional or otherwise, I can really muster is “dude same.”
For a long time I was huge into absurdist philosophy, because it felt to my depressed brain like just the right balance between straight up denying that things are bad (and thus we should fix them, or at least try to do so) and full-blown nihilism. This gives absurdism a lot of credit; mostly it’s just a loose set of spicy existentialist ideas and shit that sounds good on a sticker, like “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
In the last couple years, while outside of my depressive state, I went back to Camus’ work and found a lot of almost full-on abusive shit in it. Not toward anyone specifically, but shit like “nobody and nothing will care if you’re gone, so live out of spite of them all” rubs me the wrong way in retrospect. The philosophy Camus puts out opens the door for living in a very self-destructive fashion; that in fact the good life is living without care for yourself or anyone/anything else. The way Camus describes and derides suicide especially is grim as fuck, and certainly I would never recommend The Myth of Sisyphus to anyone currently struggling with ideation. That “perfect balance” between denial and nihilism is really not that perfect at all, and in fact skews much more heavily towards the latter.
Neon Genesis Evangelion has been a big albatross around my neck in terms of the media products I’ve consumed in my life that I believe have influenced my depression hardcore. It sits in a similar conversational space to Camus’ work, in that it confronts nihilism and at once rejects and facilitates it. A lot of folks remark that Evangelion is pretty unique – or at least uncommon – in its accurate portrayal of depression, especially for mid-90s anime properties. The thing I notice always seems to be missing in these discussions is that along with that accurate portrayal comes a spot-on – to me, at least – depiction of what depression does to resist being treated. This is a disease that uses a person’s rational faculties to suggest that nobody else could possibly understand their pain, and therefore there’s no use in getting better or moving forward. Shinji Ikari is as self-centered as Hideaki Anno is as I am when it comes to confronting the truth: there are paths out of this hole, but nobody else can take that step out but us, and part of our illness is that refusal to do just that. Depression lies, it provides a cold comfort to the sufferer, that there is no existence other than the one where we are in pain and there is no way out, so pull the blanket up over our head and go back to sleep.
Watching Evangelion for the first time corresponded with the onset of one of the worst depressive spirals I’ve ever been in, and so, much like the time I got a stomach virus at the same time that I ate Arby’s curly fries, I kind of can’t associate Evangelion with anything else. No matter what else it might signify, no matter what other meaning there is to derive from it, for me Eva is the Bad Feeling Anime™. Which is why, naturally, I had to binge all four of the Evangelion theatrical releases upon the release of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time last month.
If Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion are works produced by someone with untreated depression just fucking rawdogging existence, then the Eva movies are works produced by someone who has gone to therapy even just one fucking time. Whether that therapy is working or not is to be determined, but they have taken that step out of the hole and are able to believe that there is a possibility of living a depression-free life. The first 40 minutes or so of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 are perfect cinema to me. The world is destroyed but there is a way to bring it back. Restoration and existence is possible even when the surface of the planet might as well be the surface of the Moon. The only thing about this is, everyone has to be on board to help. Even though WILLE fired one of its special de-corefication devices into the ground to give the residents of Village 3 a chance at survival, the maintenance of this pocket ecosystem is actively their responsibility. There is no room or time for people who won’t actively contribute, won’t actively participate in making a better world from the ashes of the old.
There are a lot of essentialist claims and assumptions made by the film in this first act about how the body interacts with the social – the concept of disability itself just doesn’t seem to have made it into the ring of safety provided by Misato and the Wunder, which seems frankly wild to me, and women are almost singularly portrayed in traditionalist support roles while men are the doers and the fixers and the makers. I think it’s worth raising a skeptical eyebrow at this trad conservative “back to old ways” expression of the post-apocalypse wherever it comes up, just as it’s important to acknowledge where the movie pushes back on these themes, like when Toji (or possibly Kensuke) is telling Shinji that, despite all the hard work everyone is doing like farming and building, the village is far from self-sufficient and will likely always rely on provisions from the Wunder.
As idyllic as the setting is, it’s not the ideal. As Shinji emerges from his catatonia, Kensuke takes him around the village perimeter. It’s quiet, rural Japan as far as the eye can see, but everywhere there are contingencies; rationing means Kensuke can only catch one fish a week, all the entry points where flowing water comes into the radius of the de-corefication devices have to be checked for blockages because the water supply will run out. There is a looming possibility that the de-corefication machines could break or shut down at some point, and nobody knows what will happen when that happens. On the perimeter, lumbering, pilot-less and headless Eva units shuffle around; it is unknown whether they’re horrors endlessly biding their time or simply ghosts looking to reconnect to the ember of humanity on the other side of the wall. Survival is always an open question, and mutual aid is the expectation. Still: the apocalypse happened, and we’re still here. The question Village 3 answers is “what now?” We move on, we adapt.
Evangelion is still a work that does its level best to defy easy interpretation, but the modern version of the franchise has largely abandoned the nihilism that was at its core in the 90s version. It’s not just that Shinji no longer denies the world until the last possible second – it’s that he frequently actively reaches out and is frustrated by other people’s denials. He wants to connect, he wants to be social, but he’s also burdened with the idea that he’s only good to others if he’s useful, and he’s only useful if he pilots the Eva unit. This last movie separates him and what he is worth to others (and himself) from his agency in being an Eva pilot, finally. In doing so, he’s able to reconcile with nearly everyone in his life who he has harmed or who has hurt him, and create a world in which there is no Evangelion. While this ending is much more wishful thinking than one more grounded in the reality of the franchise – one that, say, focuses on the existence and possible flourishing of Village 3 and other settlements like it while keeping one eye on the precarious balancing act they’re all playing – it feels better than the ending of End of Eva, and even than the last two episodes of the original series.
I’m glad the nihilism in Evangelion is gone, for the most part. I’m glad that I didn’t spend roughly eight hours watching the Evamovies only to be met yet again with a message of “everything is pointless, fuck off and die.” Because I’ve been absorbing that sentiment a lot lately, from a lot of different sources, and it really just fuckin sucks to hear over and over again.
It is a truth we can’t easily ignore that the confluence of pandemic, climate change, authoritarian surge and capitalist decay has made shit miserable recently. But the spike in lamentations over the intractability of this mix of shit – the inevitability of our destruction, to put it in simpler terms – really is pissing me off. No one person is going to fix the world, that much is absolutely true, but if everyone just goes limp and decides to “123 not it” the apocalypse then everyone crying about how the world is fucked on Twitter will simply be adding to the opening bars of a self-fulfilling prophesy.
We can’t get in a mech to save the world but then, neither realistically could Shinji Ikari. What we can do looks a lot more like what’s being done in Village 3: people helping each other with limited resources wherever they can.
Last week, Hurricane Ida slammed into the Gulf Coast and churned there for hours – decimating Bayou communities in Louisiana and disrupting the supply chain extensively – before powering down and moving inland. Last night the powerful remnants of that storm tore through the Northeast, causing intense flooding. Areas not typically affected by hurricanes suddenly found themselves in a similar boat – pun not intended – to folks for whom hurricanes are simply a fact of life. There’s a once-in-a-millennium drought and heatwave ripping through the West Coast and hey – who can forget back in February when Oklahoma and Texas experienced -20 degree temperatures for several days in a row? All of this against the backdrop of a deadly and terrifying pandemic and worsening political climate. It’s genuinely scary! But there are things we can do.
First, if you’re in a weather disaster-prone area, get to know your local mutual aid organizations. Some of these groups might be official non-profits; one such group in the Louisiana area, for example, is Common Ground Relief. Check their social media accounts for updates on what to do and who needs help. If you’re not sure if there’s one in your area, check out groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief for that same information. Even if you’re not in a place that expects to see the immediate effects of climate change, you should still consider linking up with organizing groups in your area. Tenant unions, homeless organizations, safe injection sites and needle exchanges, immigrant rights groups, environmental activist orgs, reproductive health groups – all could use some help right now, in whatever capacity you might be able to provide it.
In none of these scenarios are we going to be the heroes of the story, and we shouldn’t view this kind of work in that way. But neither should we give into the nihilistic impulse to insist upon doing nothing, insist that inaction is the best course of action, and get back under the blankets for our final sleep. Kill that impulse in your head, and fuck, if you have to, simply just fucking wish for that better world. Then get out of bed and help make it happen.
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cover2covermom · 4 years
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Goodbye April & hello May!
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I’m running toward it…
April seemed to drag on despite the days flying by.  Does that even make sense?  Like I’ve mentioned before, my days are filled with homeschooling, home projects, mask making, and reading.  I’ve been doing my best to fill my hours to ease the COVID-19 anxiety.
I received the notification that I will be returning to work next week, which was welcome news.  I’m ready to get back a little bit of normalcy in my life.  Thankfully, our library system is reopening in phases.  Our first phase will be employees only (3-5 employees in the building at one time) and offering curb-side service to our patrons.  As of now, we will not open our doors to the public until June 1st at the earliest.  At that point in time, we will be limiting the number of patrons allowed in the building.  It is definitely going to be a learning curve to see what my new work normal is going to entail.  I’m looking forward to adapting & rising to the occasion.
» Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis
As per usual, Mindy McGinnis puts out another harrowing YA book.  I love survival stories, so I enjoyed this story about a girl that has gotten lost in the woods.  Be Not Far From Me was uncomfortable to read at certain points.
» Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker
*3.5 Stars*
This was a sweet story about two kids that form a friendship while hanging around an abandoned lot.  The first half of this book didn’t grab me and moved far too slowly.  I enjoyed the second half of this book a lot better than the first half.
» Keeper of Lost Cities (Keeper of the Lost Cities #1) by Shannon Messenger
An awesome MG fantasy!  I cannot wait to continue on with this series.  I’d recommend this to fans of Harry Potter.
» Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman
*2.75 Stars*
I read this for one of my book clubs.   I think the author was attempting to write a book that would charm readers with eccentric characters & a humorous plotline, but don’t think it delivered.  Instead of being funny, the story felt odd & forced.
» A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry
I think the author did a tremendous job writing a book from a wolf’s perspective.  You can tell the author did extensive research into wolves & their behaviors.  While I think this animal perspective was very well done, I didn’t think the plotline was all that entertaining.
» The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum
I’ve decided to challenge myself to read more children’s classics in 2020.   To kick start this challenge, I started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This was a delightful read!  I was surprised to learn that the slippers were actually silver instead of ruby red… mind blown!
» SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson
This is a must read for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.  While you don’t HAVE to read Speak to read SHOUT, I feel like it makes a bigger impact if you read Speak prior to this.  If you didn’t know, SHOUT is Anderson’s memoir told in verse.
» Loveboat, Taipei (Loveboat, Taipei #1) by Abigail Hing Wen
*4.5 Stars*
This is a guilty pleasure type of read.  Actually, it reminded me a bit of Crazy Rich Asians a bit.  It is a tad racy for a YA book… So I’d probably recommend for older YA readers that are 16+
» Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities #2) by Shannon Messenger
I am LOVING this MG fantasy series.  While these books are a bit chunky, don’t let the page count deter you.  I flew through the first two books in this series this month.  Also, I’m happy to report that this second installment does NOT suffer from “second book syndrome.”
» Nooks & Crannies by Jessica Lawson
Nooks & Crannies is an excellent MG historical mystery.  Some of the elements of this story gave me Matilda mixed with A Series of Unfortunate Events vibes.  The audiobook is well narrated.
» The Penderwicks (The Penderwicks #1) by Jeanne Birdsall
This is the perfect book to pick up during the summer months.  It really gave me modern Little Women crossed with The Secret Garden vibes.  The ending was so heartwarming it almost brought me to tears.
Goodreads Challenge Update: 46 books!
*I know it says 47, but I finished The Last (Endling #1) on May 1st*
March 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up
April 2020 TBR
Childhood Classics 2020: TBR
Most Anticipated Books of 2020 (May – December)
Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 1
Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 2
If you were ever curious what a bookworm’s quarantine stress shopping spree looks like, here you go…
» The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising #1) by Kiersten White
There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.
Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution–send in Guinevere to be Arthur’s wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king’s idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere’s real name–and her true identity–is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.
To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old–including Arthur’s own family–demand things continue as they have been, and the new–those drawn by the dream of Camelot–fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur’s knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.
Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?
» Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
The story of a deaf girl’s connection to a whale whose song can’t be heard by his species, and the journey she takes to help him.
From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.
When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to “sing” to him! But he’s three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him?
» Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.
When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk–grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh–Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar.
But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love.
Channeling the vibrant heart of myth and fairy tale, Spinning Silver weaves a multilayered, magical tapestry that readers will want to return to again and again.
» Girls Like Us by Randi Pink
Set in the summer of 1972, this moving YA historical novel is narrated by teen girls from different backgrounds with one thing in common: Each girl is dealing with pregnancy. Four teenage girls. Four different stories. What they all have in common is that they’re dealing with unplanned pregnancies.
In rural Georgia, Izella is wise beyond her years, but burdened with the responsibility of her older sister, Ola, who has found out she’s pregnant. Their young neighbor, Missippi, is also pregnant, but doesn’t fully understand the extent of her predicament. When her father sends her to Chicago to give birth, she meets the final narrator, Susan, who is white and the daughter of an anti-choice senator.
Randi Pink masterfully weaves four lives into a larger story – as timely as ever – about a woman’s right to choose her future.
» The Island of the Sea Women by Lisa See
Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.
This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.
» The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf
A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.
Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.
But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.
With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.
» Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai
Nadia’s family is forced to flee their home in Aleppo, Syria, when the Arab Spring sparks a civil war in this timely coming-of-age novel from award-winning author N.H. Senzai.
Silver and gold balloons. A birthday cake covered in pink roses. A new dress.
Nadia stands at the center of attention in her parents’ elegant dining room. This is the best day of my life, she thinks. Everyone is about to sing “Happy Birthday,” when her uncle calls from the living room, “Baba, brothers, you need to see this.” Reluctantly, she follows her family into the other room. On TV, a reporter stands near an overturned vegetable cart on a dusty street. Beside it is a mound of smoldering ashes. The reporter explains that a vegetable vendor in the city of Tunis burned himself alive, protesting corrupt government officials who have been harassing his business. Nadia frowns.
It is December 17, 2010: Nadia’s twelfth birthday and the beginning of the Arab Spring. Soon anti-government protests erupt across the Middle East and, one by one, countries are thrown into turmoil. As civil war flares in Syria and bombs fall across Nadia’s home city of Aleppo, her family decides to flee to safety. Inspired by current events, this novel sheds light on the complicated situation in Syria that has led to an international refugee crisis, and tells the story of one girl’s journey to safety.
» The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre #1) by Gail Carson Levine
Twelve-year-old Addie admires her older sister Meryl, who aspires to rid the kingdom of Bamarre of gryphons, specters, and ogres. Addie, on the other hand, is fearful even of spiders and depends on Meryl for courage and protection. Waving her sword Bloodbiter, the older girl declaims in the garden from the heroic epic of Drualt to a thrilled audience of Addie, their governess, and the young sorcerer Rhys.
But when Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister. Addie takes the seven-league boots and magic spyglass left to her by her mother and the enchanted tablecloth and cloak given to her by Rhys – along with a shy declaration of his love. She prevails in encounters with tricky specters (spiders too) and outwits a wickedly personable dragon in adventures touched with romance and a bittersweet ending.
» The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre 0.5) by Gail Carson Levine
In this compelling and thought-provoking fantasy set in the world of The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Newbery Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine introduces a spirited heroine who must overcome deeply rooted prejudice—including her own—to heal her broken country.
Peregrine strives to be the Latki ideal—and to impress her parents: affectionate Lord Tove, who despises only the Bamarre, and stern Lady Klausine. Perry runs the fastest, speaks her mind, and doesn’t give much thought to the castle’s Bamarre servants, who she knows to be weak and cowardly. The Lakti always wage war, and the battlefield will give her the chance to show her valor.
But just as she’s about to join her father on the front lines, she is visited by the fairy Halina, who reveals that Perry isn’t Latki-born. She is a Bamarre. The fairy issues a daunting challenge: against the Lakti might, free her people from tyranny.
» A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman
An enchanting historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Thanhha Lai’s Newbery Honor-winning Inside Out and Back Again   No one comes to the Second World on purpose. The doorway between worlds opens only when least expected. The Raft King is desperate to change that by finding the doorway that will finally take him and the people of Raftworld back home. To do it, he needs Pip, a young boy with an incredible gift—he can speak to fish; and the Raft King is not above kidnapping to get what he wants. Pip’s sister Kinchen, though, is determined to rescue her brother and foil the Raft King’s plans.   This is but the first of three extraordinary stories that collide on the high seas of the Second World. The second story takes us back to the beginning: Venus and Swimmer are twins captured aboard a slave ship bound for Jamaica in 1781. They save themselves and others from a life of enslavement with a risky, magical plan—one that leads them from the shark-infested waters of the first world to the second. Pip and Kinchen will hear all about them before their own story is said and done. So will Thanh and his sister Sang, who we meet in 1976 on a small boat as they try to escape post-war Vietnam. But after a storm and a pirate attack, they’re not sure they’ll ever see shore again. What brings these three sets of siblings together on an adventure of a lifetime is a little magic, helpful sea monsters and that very special portal, A Crack in the Sea.
» The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger—and a possible murderer—to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead … but that won’t stop him from playing one last game!
» Ballet Shoes (Shoes #1) by Noel Streatfeild
Pauline, Petrova and Posy are orphans determined to help out their new family by joining the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. But when they vow to make a name for themselves, they have no idea it’s going to be such hard work! They launch themselves into the world of show business, complete with working papers, the glare of the spotlight, and practice, practice, practice! Pauline is destined for the movies. Posy is a born dancer. But practical Petrova finds she’d rather pilot a plane than perform a pirouette. Each girl must find the courage to follow her dream.
» Wishtree by Katherine Applegate
Trees can’t tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .
Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood “wishtree”—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red’s branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red’s hollows, this “wishtree” watches over the neighborhood.
You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red’s experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.
» The Library of Ever (The Library of Ever #1) by Zeno Alexander
With her parents off traveling the globe, Lenora is bored, bored, bored–until she discovers a secret doorway in the library and becomes its newly appointed Fourth Assistant Apprentice Librarian.
In her new job, Lenora finds herself helping future civilizations figure out the date, relocates lost penguins, uncovers the city with the longest name on Earth, and more in a quest to help patrons. But there are sinister forces at work that want to destroy all knowledge. To save the library, Lenora will have to test her limits and uncover secrets hidden among its shelves.
» Chains (Seeds of America #1) by Laurie Halse Anderson
As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight…for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom.
From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.
» The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.
One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.
The acclaimed author of The Witch’s Boy has created another epic coming-of-age fairy tale destined to become a modern classic. 
Which books did you read in April?
Have you read any of the books I read or hauled this month?  If so, what did you think?
Did you buy any books?  If so, which ones?
Comment below & let me know 🙂
April 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up + Book Haul #BookBlogger #Bookworm #Bibliophile #BookHaul #Reading #Books #WrapUp Goodbye April & hello May! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I'm running toward it...
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slewfirst-blog · 5 years
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hc + family legacy
send me  ‘ hc ‘  + a word and i’ll write a headcanon about it regarding my character.
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THE BELMONT LEGACY ft. TREVOR BELMONT . 
While I tend to follow the canon timeline, if there’s one thing I will always take away from the Netflixvania Adaptation is that Trevor Belmont is always the lone Belmont heir / survivor .
I felt it added a richness to his character and while a lot of his designs denote a very tough-as-hell person, rough around the edges  - it benefits for him to be given in one story outside that time-line, a very, very, very rough past and I keep that, because we know little of his background save he was a noble like every Belmont generally, and that the Church hired him in their time of need to slay Dracula despite fearing his family’s powers. If anything, I can’t think of anything more brutal in that series than what was done to the Belmonts . It’s subtle and not talked of often but Trevor literally embodies it . It’s in how guarded he talks; how stoic and unreadable he appears; how quick he is to flinch at any measure of affection . 
In the main time-line, and really every game / story the heart of Castlevania’s plot is there is a Belmont, the Belmont has the consecrated Vampire Killer, the only weapon that can defeat Dracula and kill holy god like beings / and all creatures of darkness - thus, making them the guardians of humanity. The Belmont scales the Vampire’s Castle. The Belmont destroys Dracula, and he’s revived as long as evil exists - and so the task is never finished. It’s a literal eternal war that makes the Belmonts invaluable and must be preserved. 
So where does a young twelve year old Trevor Belmont fit in? As a child, he grew up on tales of Leon Belmont, how he faced the Grim Reaper himself and wounded him with the whip that was made from his true love. 
It fascinated and filled him with awe.Surrounded by loving parents, harsh but strict, raised in the faith of his mother who still clung to the ‘real’ God and not the Church that excommunicated them - Trevor thrived as the oldest Belmont along with his baby sister, Helene - who did not have to bear the heavy mantle of destiny that fell upon Trevor should his Father, Auguste, fail or even Lisette, his Mother. 
Both valid hunters in their own right. Tradition and honor were quickly ingrained in him at a young age - as was compassion for those that were less fortunate because back then they were upper class nobles with a castle and a hold - and lands, servants, etc . They were literally light embodied in people, from the old to the young, and as expected of Belmonts, unparalleled warriors - training their youngest Son with the Vampire Killer. 
Trevor grew up on tales of how to kill vampires, how to slay ghouls, wicked faeries, all creatures which might haunt Romania, a home that was not even native to them - France was . He wore his crest proudly on his back; and took to training with a natural ease and quick-to-learn skill that made his Father especially proud, and someone he strove to emulate as much as he wanted to become a fraction of the man Leon Belmont was . 
He wanted to become his own warrior, and at an early age his eerily adept talent was keen - from hunting and hawking; horse-riding; what scarce time he had for tutors, he was a very serious, but loving boy with a huge capacity of ingrained integrity and heroism - as you’d expect from his Lineage . He didn’t think his legacy was a burden, his family was called to safeguard the world from any evil; and that filled him with pride and purpose. He’d prank his sister, sneak a piece of bread from the table, trick a tutor once or twice, get the scolding of a lifetime; all the while even immobilizing his own Father at eleven with an especially quick and cunning move he’d make on the fly with sheer natural talent - establishing his later strategist skills on the battlefield and his mission and his sheer skill as a prowess. Granted he didn’t often sneak up on Auguste, but he did it enough that it had his Father grinning with pride and wonder at what his son would become.
( He’d never live to see it or his greatness. )
It was a place of light and goodness - a place Trevor eagerly awaited the day he’d be able to visit the Hold and learn even more, learn ways to protect the people on their lands, the people who hadn’t yet scorned them, in the early stages before the unthinkable and unspeakable happened. 
And it did.
His family died suffocating either inside the Castle leaving him to be forced to see nieces and nephews own corpses, grandparents and uncles, aunts and cousins - but the majority were set on stakes, among them, his then seven year old sister Helene, along with his Father and Mother, who even in death were reaching out to each other with their flesh-tearing away hands. Most were not spared a suffocation - they died burning alive, like Lisa but multiplied by near twenties in numbers. They didn’t die, they were slaughtered, erased, culled, massacred.
And Trevor watched every second until every beloved face became a torn away skeleton that he couldn’t even bury because everything, everything he loved he had lost in a split of a second . At twelve, before Dracula ever planned his great war once more on humanity, Trevor’s world had already been eradicated - and in a sense, it was a complete massacre, even dying his family faced their murderers unflinchingly like Belmonts; fire in their eyes and no regret no remorse; no hatred for the people they had been put on the earth to save from any and all evil. The world’s saving light died that day - save for one, and most of him was as much of scattered ash as the family he couldn’t even honor in a monument.
Around his early twenties; Trevor struggles with an unwavering sense of purpose to hold to the light - despite holding bitterness just as much. He lives in a world where existing is a crime, and food often went without for days, as went sleep, as went comfort - as went kindness until literally forgot what it meant to be loved by others in any small goodness - every town spit at him, unaware that his was the Legacy of the very family that would deliver them from Dracula . He feels above all, that his parents, Uncles, Aunts, anyone but him should have survived - saying he has survivor’s guilt is an understatement and his pain can’t even be put into words, there isn’t a word for it.
He carries the legacy with desperate pride and purpose, and knows even more now, in agony, how even for all the hatred of the world he bears on his shoulders, he still bears a hateful world to save . He carries generations of good and honorable men and women who fought for light and salvation for all, not one race or creed, not any denomination or background or orientation . They fought because it was right - they fought because they had the power that made it critical for them to not stand idly by - because it is their duty to fight Dracula and the night, and anything else that stands in their way. 
So for how broken Trevor truly is, how much he wishes he at times could close his eyes and see not burnt away faces but the smiling thrall of his family; the mayhem and the diligence - he can’t. He can’t go back. He can’t play with his dogs, his cats, his hawks. He can’t train with his Father or pray with his Mother, he can’t kiss his sister’s hair anymore, get his hair ruffled by his uncles and aunts, dote on his grandparents, kiss his cousins and carry newborn babies of his relatives offspring - all he can do is carry the mantle that has existed since Leon Belmont’s day - and carry on, even if the world never thanks him, it is still his duty as a Belmont, to carry out the task only they can fulfill. And so it’s with pride and restrained bitterness that Trevor continues on, only hiding his crest to gain information - but mostly bearing it proudly, in a wild sort of grief. A brokenness, a bottomless well of sorrow and pain that will never mend. 
Somehow, the ingrained goodness he held as a child remains, mainly due to his relatives and parents, and so he isn’t a bitter, spit on corpses type of person - but a noble man, as they wanted of him - as confident as he is in his skills, his greatest fear likely is letting his entire clan down. Whether it’s failing to kill Dracula with the infamous Master Sword Vampire Killer or dishonoring their name, he would do anything secretly in his heart to ask his charred, not even bones left to remember them by family at the end of his quest:
‘Did I do us proud? Did you watch from heaven? Someone tell me I’ve done enough but no one is left to tell me anymore. ‘
Are you watching me? ‘ So for all they tried to do is break and emotionally kill Trevor, which, on a fair level they did, the legacy after the Belmont Massacre remains like a kindling fire in the surviving heir - and he can’t shake the cause or the calling, whether he wanted to drown in his pain or not, Trevor chooses to go forward, even if it’s visually limping from being half-buried with them. 
He’ll carry them on forever, and instill that same light in the Belmonts who follow after him that take up the cause . 
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swan2swan · 6 years
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The issue of bloodlines and their burdens is not limited solely to Star Wars. Another story that tackles the issue perhaps even better than the Original Six (and a heck of a lot better than the Sequel Trilogy) is Avatar: the Last Airbender.
I know you’re all thinking of the same character, but we’ll get to him in a bit, because first, we need to study our Original Three protagonists, starting with Aang.
1. Aang is the Last Airbender, but he’s not some Air Nomad Prince; we still have never met his parents, and their legacy is irrelevant because of the monastic order he was raised in, but his heritage is one far more significant than blood: he is the Avatar. He is a reincarnation gifted with the ability to push past the boundaries of those already deemed exceptional. He can bend all four elements, he can enter the Spirit World at will, and he is capable of communicating with his past lives for advice and counsel. This is power people would kill for...and the theme of his story is coming to grips with it. Throughout his story, he rejects it, embraces it, runs from it, succumbs to it, and finally finds a way to balance it with himself. He decides that he is both the Avatar and the Last Airbender, the protector of all four nations and the one responsible for preserving the culture of Air. During all of this, he also balances himself with his titles, retaining his connection to his friends and his love for his family. We learn in the next series that it was a struggle up until the day the died, but he managed to do it...this is what makes him an Epic Hero. From the day he was born, he was destined to save the world, but he did it his way, and never allowed his responsibilities to erase his identity, or his personal attachments to let the world fail. He trusted in those around him and was able to save the world by sharing the burden.
2. Said burden, of course, falls on the shoulders of Katara and Sokka--or rather, into their willing hands. They are, amusingly enough, royalty themselves: Sokka is the son and heir to the chief, and Katara (like Luke) is the last practitioner of a power she inherited from her deceased parent (of course, Kya wasn’t ruling the Fire Nation, but we’ll get to that later). What does this royal lineage get them?
Absolutely nothing. When the Fire Nation ship rolls in and the soldiers storm their village, Zuko doesn’t go around saying “I need to speak to the chief!” and then sit down in a tent with Sokka for a diplomatic discussion: he has the villagers all lined up and bullied  without regard for rank or status. It’s highly doubtful that Hakoda even had any royalty in his bloodline--he was probably just a big, strong man with a smart head on his shoulders who a lot of other villagers decided “hey, let’s follow him and listen to him and let him protect us,” and that’s how he became the chief. With some good strong genes and excellent parenting, he was able to raise his children to be strong, too...and that sums up what those two have going for them. The Northern Water Tribe doesn’t let Katara train because she’s a fellow princess; she fights and claws her way to the top (and then is trained anyway because Necklace Ex Machina, but the fact that it’s a Northern Water Tribe tradition and her grandmother’s migration are all well-done plot points makes it work), and her superpowered healing abilities are also something she masters with a lot of hard work...okay, so Katara’s a little OP, but she works hard, and she’s an example of someone who comes from nothing becoming a superhero.
Sokka, on the other hand, waltzes right into the first derelict island village he finds and says “Wassup, ladies, I’m the most powerful warrior among my people, feel free to ogle!” and is promptly trussed up and tossed to the floor...where he then returns to beg for forgiveness and training, because he learned that his rank, privilege, and power don’t mean a thing in the real world, and if he’s going to survive, he needs to be willing to humble himself and learn. And learn he does--studying hunting strategies, making traps, shadowing guerillas, infiltrating cities, protecting princesses, doing chin-touches, strumming guitars, faking diseases...all until he goes to train with a master swordsman, who does little more than help him to produce a weapon, because by this point Sokka’s seen so much action and drama that he’s a full-fledged warrior. Sokka’s journey is one of a boy earning his position as the heir to his father’s seat: he’s left with almost nothing, but keeps learning and adapting until he’s strong and clever enough to rescue his father from prison. Sokka began with the responsibility of having to inherit his father’s position, and he earned it. 
3. Toph and Suki, the other members of Team Avatar, are also special, but neither of them really has responsibilities; Toph is wealthy and privileged, but her privilege is a cage, and she chooses to reject it to pursue her own goals. She trains Aang, she fights for freedom, and eventually opens a school and forms a security group...and then dumps all that on her daughters and runs away to a swamp, but that is yet another essay. Suki, on the other hand, is very similar to Hakoda: she’s in charge of a bunch of fighting women on some shanty island off the coast of the Nowhere Peninsula, a place so worthless it was the final tidbit on some ancient conqueror’s wishlist, and then it just broke from the land and moved away so it didn’t have to be involved with any drama. Suki runs the gym there. That’s literally what she does. She’s a part-time fitness instructor, part-time policewoman, and eventually she decides that she’s going to go off and help police other parts of the world, because what the heck else is she going to do with her life? Then she hijacks an airship and rescues other heroes during the apocalypse or something. The point is, Toph and Suki could have both stayed home and done nothing the whole time if they’d wanted, but they chose to do more.
4. All right, now it’s time for the one you’ve all been waiting for: Azula! Oh, sorry, were you expecting Zuko? Nah, we’re starting with his sister. Because she is everything Lucasfilm wants a bloodline legacy to embody: wealthy and privileged, proud of her genes and her talents, taught by the best, raised to be the best, and completely ruthless and uncaring...even cruel. It’s Azula who delivers one of the greatest speeches in the show, the speech that sounds like it belongs anywhere besides a Nickelodeon Cartoon: “I can see your whole history in your eyes. You’ve always had to struggle, and claw, and connive your way to power. But true power? The divine right to rule? Is something you’re born with.” The creepiest thing about the speech is that it uproots the classic literary promise of “Anyone can be a hero!” while still maintaining the theme of the show. It can be argued that Azula is right. She’s a main character, one with her own design and color palette, with more than two outfits to her name; the world isn’t going to be saved by Chong the Nomad or the hapless cabbage merchant, and it’s not going to be destroyed by one of the Rough Rhinos or Fire Nation Soldier 13. She coldly delivers a smackdown and leaves not only the lesser villains, but the audience questioning everything: are there those born to lead, and those born to serve? The grim answer the show provides...is yes.
5. This is where Zuko comes in. Prince Zuko. Royalty. Strength. Discipl...disciplin...dis...hehehe...”Discipline”. Zuko. HA. *ahem* No, but really, when we meet Zuko, he’s a fantastic villain. He has a giant metal ship, glittering armor, rippling black hair...and a menacing, terrifying scar. Fire comes from his fingertips, he seethes with rage, and he is Prince Zuko of the mighty Fire Nation: all of the world will tremble at his coming. But for a moment, a soft moment, we see his armor hidden by a cloak in the middle of the night, as he quietly seethes to his uncle about finding the Avatar and restoring his honor, and we hear him muse about his father to Aang, and see hints of a person beneath that.
Everything becomes clear in the third episode. Prince Zuko’s ship, which dwarfed Sokka’s village, sits timidly in the shadow of a line of much larger vessels. Commander Zhao towers above Zuko and wears much fancier armor, and then outplays Zuko in a mindgame. We see suddenly that Zuko’s status as a prince is all but worthless...his own father has rejected him. The scar on his face is not some amazing battle scar, but a mark of shame from a duel he lost--a duel we later learn was lost to his own father. Zuko triumphs in a fresh duel, showing honor and restraint, and a glimmer of kindness and mercy...but he continues to try and defeat the Avatar throughout his journey. Time and again, we see Zuko, this privileged prince, try to overcome the heroes...and he loses it all. He barely escapes being collected by his smarter, deadlier sister, and spends a whole season on the run, forced to conceal his true identity from everyone he meets out of fear and shame. He bears witness to the crimes his people have committed: broken villages, scarred legs, starving refugees. He’s given a choice, then, to stay among them...or to betray them all and return home. In his fear and impatience, he chooses the latter: he rejects goodness and chooses the privilege and power. He returns home, he is a hero, he has his father’s respect, his girlfriend’s love, everything he ever wanted...and this is a story that could not be told if he were anyone else. 
Because then he realizes that this isn’t making him happy--he, too, has responsibilities. So he throws it all away, and marches to his father and tells him, straight-out, that he cannot live in safety and comfort while the rest of the world cowers in terror. He won’t turn a blind eye to the suffering of others. He leaves, flying off, and risks death time and time again, until finally he fights to win back the crown...and almost loses it to save the life of one of those peasants he’d tormented back in another life. Then, he stands tall and takes his place on the throne, and vows to use his privilege and power to better the world...and we see that he does. How? Because he’s royalty. The story is not about how “a good person can make a difference”, but that “people who can make a difference need to be taught how to be good”. Azula boasted about the “divine right to rule” giving power...yet Zuko’s mind was swayed by a peasant girl with a scarred leg, a boy who decided to fight soldiers with a knife, and a young rebel who couldn’t stand the sight of starving refugees. The core of power can be swayed by many who work together...and that’s the point of the show. Everyone has power. It’s how you use it that matters.
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bookandcover · 3 years
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[Note: I wrote this post in its entirety in September 2020]. 
Our August book for the family Anti-Racism Book Club (and the choice of my historically-minded mother) was Black Boy by Richard Wright. I was a bit skeptical about this choice, because of its publication date (1945), and a feeling of urgency to read and think about the pressing issues and questions around race in America today. Ultimately, though, I was very glad to have read this poignant memoir and to take a closer look at a certain time period in Black American history through the lens of Wright’s direct, astutely observational style.
From this novel, I learned a lot about historical context: the experiences of Southern life under Jim Crow in the early 20th century, the urban/manufacturing context of the North that presented its own set of charged racial issues, the educational and occupational framework in pre-Great Depression era and during the Great Depression, the rise of Communism in America and the overlap of this with the Black experience (I had no idea that many Black men and women were interested in and drawn to Communism as a means to reinvent the system of oppression under which they lived). While I felt, at the end of the memoir, a gap in my understanding (how do we go from this point to 21st century racial tensions?), I was able to trace and draw certain, important connections. 
This memoir is, of course, the perspective of one person on his experience growing up as a Black man in the South in the early 20th century. Wright does have an interest in capturing the larger Black experience beyond himself, of observing and cataloguing the impulses of his generation and the emotional psychology of his setting and situation. He speaks often about psychology, explaining how he perceives the groups and categories of people around him. He does, it seems, want to capture something that is intrinsic and universal about Blackness and about his time period and context for Black people in America. At the same time, there are aspects of the memoir and his perspective that, I assume, must be unique to Wright. His perspective is bleak. He goes through phases of more or less hope for the future of race relations in the U.S. He writes that “for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro will take a bigger and tougher America than any we have yet known.” He links issues of race to larger, over-arching problems in American psychology and economic philosophy. He expresses a desperate need for more in his own life, but sees no tools to take him there, no model or example for him to follow. This need for more echoes his physical hunger, a repeated motif throughout the memoir, and the source of the memoir’s original title (American Hunger). 
At certain points in the novel, I felt baffled that Wright (with his passion for change, his strong conviction that he could be cowed by no one) was also the author of Native Son (which I read years ago, and which I recall as being a bleak, grim portrait of the terrible way the world is stacked against young Black men). While this stacking and this bleakness is true (there is overwhelming evidence in support of this truth), there is a bleakness that pervades Native Son’s tone and outlook to the point that I was struck repeatedly by that alone. By the end of his memoir, though, I could see the link from Wright’s life to Native Son. Over and over again, the hope Wright holds up to the world is shattered. By the end of the memoir, the bleakness expressed in Native Son seemed to me to be well-aligned with his experiences. His falling out with the Communist Party, in which he had hope, seemed like some kind of final nail in the coffin. 
Despite phases of hope and a burning hunger for both literal and spiritual resources, Wright feels eternally misfit for his circumstances—no one seems to see him and accept his truth. This is not something that is born in him over time, but something he always faced. Piled on top of this are continual disappointments. The North presents as many challenges as the South. The Communist Party—which he embraced as a real framework for change—expels him, casts him out. This misfit-feeling—while also evidencing a world designed to uplift white men and ensconce them forever in positions of power, while keeping Black men outside of this framework and these opportunities—is one of the things that I perceived to be specific to Wright’s experience. While other Black figures in the book also face a world designed to dehumanize and oppress them, Wright experiences being an outcast in every way. One good example of this is Wright’s experience being run out of the Negro Theater by the Black actors, who feel that Wright has turned against them in trying to present realistic dramas. Wright’s vision doesn’t align with that of the other Black people around him. The Black Communists respond with similar criticisms of Wright, and these criticism focus on Wright’s reading and learning (he is branded an “intellectual” by the Communists). Wright’s passion for writing and his commitment to thinking in a sweeping, analytical style shaped and developed by his reading seem to put him “out of step” with a lot of the people around him, Black or white. The more he reads and thinks, the bigger the gap seems to grow, moving him beyond the experiences and thoughts of those closest to him.  
While it is, of course, an oversimplification of Wright’s misfit feeling to reduce it to the self-education he pursued compared with the poor, working class people around him, I thought it was interesting to see elements of his perpetual misfit feeling be traceable to Black experience, while others are traceable to other aspects of Wright’s upbringing and personality (such as his passion for self-directed learning). Interestingly, Wright does not engage whole-heartedly with school. Many times, he prioritizes other things in front of school (and not just employment, money, and food). He leaves his home with Uncle Clark, the place where he has the best support for his education, because of his fear of his room (where Mr. Burden’s young son died) and his family’s insistence that he overcome this fear. Wright’s stubbornness is clear. He’d rather leave this place, where he has not only opportunities for schooling but also enough to eat, in order to return to his grandmother and mother, face hunger, yet feel the independence to enact his way. He also stands up strongly against his principal when he’s told to deliver a speech he did not write when he’s elected as the Valedictorian and asked to speak at his 9th grade graduation. Despite the principal’s threats that Wright might not graduate and that he’d no longer “think of placing him in the school system, teaching,” Wright delivers the speech he wrote. He says to the principal—faced with his offer to help him go to college if Wright “plays it safe”—that “I want to learn...but there are some things I don’t want to know.” This stubbornness and conviction characterizes Wright even before he follows his interested in reading, before he expands his worldview. It sets him apart and alienates him from others by pitting his will against theirs. 
Self-directed learning, unlike formal education, draws Wright’s complete and utter commitment. While Wright clearly doesn’t find enough in formal education to fight for (and it’s interesting that his Southern public school didn’t inspire this passion in him, although this perhaps has something to do with the communal aspect of learning, and the challenges such as the conflict with his principal), but he does find something worth fighting for in self-directed learning (independent, directed by his own pathway and choices). One of the most memorable scenes of this book—as also discussed in the Introduction—is Wright’s plan to forage a note requesting books from the white man who gives him his library card. Wright’s fear that he’ll be found out does not overcome his attempts and the books he chooses immediately demonstrate his interest in thinking and reading outside the box, as he chooses books that would be seen as highly controversial reading for a Black man.  
Before Wright becomes an avid reader, he already experiences feeling like a misfit. As a child, he seems continually out-of-step with his family. The way in which this is repeatedly evident is through his rejection of their punishment system. Something inside him makes him refuse to accept beatings. In a similar fashion, in his first encounters with white people, through his part-time jobs while a student, he refuses to be cowed, intimidated, or accepting of belittling treatment. He leaves many jobs because he cannot stand the way he is treated. He chocks this up to experience, saying that he encountered white people too late in life, and that he had not learned, instinctively, how to interact with them, how to make them feel his deference when he did not feel this nor believe in it. Time and time again, Wright is not willing to sacrifice ideals of pride, independence, or instinct in favor of long-term goals or schemes. He seems to wear his heart on sleeve, while others read in his eyes and his face how he truly feels, even if he stays silent. His spirit is perceived and it’s a threat. 
Throughout the book, my primary question was: how did Wright get like this? How does someone, anyone, who is driven and passion develop those characteristics and mindset in an environment that not only does not encourage or teach those things (creativity, vision, analytical thinking, independence), but actively discourages them? I have wondered this about some of my students, as well—both Upward Bound students and international students—who seem to burn with a fire for something without any reason to have had this fire lit or sustained. What fuels them? What keeps them fighting against their situations and circumstances? How did they ever lock onto this pathway out of and beyond their context? Other people make some sense. In spite of very challenge circumstances (poverty, race, abuse, disability), they had some positive reinforcement at a critical time period (a strong parental figure, a teacher or mentor who fought for them, a community who said “hey, you are doing something important”). But, in Wright’s narrative, I saw none of this, and, in fact, much of the opposite. His family treats him with very little love. His mother is strong-minded, but not compassionate. She does not push or challenge him or inspire him (unlike, say, Trevor Noah’s mom, as depicted by him in Born A Crime). And Wright’s mother falls ill early and seems to become back-drop in Wright’s narrative. Wright’s energy seems to come from the opposite of support—a furious defiance of those around him, starting with his own family and expanding to the world. And while the oppression he feels from his punishment-oriented family is vastly different than he oppression he feels from a community designed to stratify race and class, his response to these forces has some similarities. Watching his strength and passion, his stubbornness and sense of self, proclaimed loud and proud again and again, I kept circling back to the question of why he was this person...in an environment that seemed pitted fully against these characteristics ever coming to be. 
This is the first book read for our Anti-Racism Book Club by a writer (self-proclaimed, prioritizer of writing). Trevor Noah and Bryan Stevenson, while incredible advocates and compelling storytellers, are not writers. They use writing and story-telling as tools, to share their points and their perspectives, to entertain, to engage, to expose, to reveal, to motivate, to rally. But Wright is a writer, caught up in the literary moves of his own life, themes and motifs, development of character, the psychology of humanity, language and its frivolities and necessities. This may seem like an unnecessary or unimportant comparison among the authors we’ve read so far, but Wright’s literariness (his love of literature/reading/writing) was something that compelled and engaged me about this novel. While, as discussed, this passion is one of the things that made him misfit from those around him, it’s also something that connects him (to others throughout the world and history, to others writing since his time period and drawing on his literary depiction of the life of a Black man in American, inspired by and challenging his tools of memoir and narration). Wright writes (pun? almost) in direct, clear prose. His words don’t get in his own way. I loved moments, though, where he dropped into beauty. Early in the memoir, he uses a literary device of listening phrases and descriptors that capture his changing awareness of the world and his own expanding mind and these, list-like, border on the poetic:
“The days and hours began to speak now with a clearer tongue. Each experience had a sharp meaning of its own.
There was the breathlessly anxious fun of chasing and catching flitting fireflies on drowsy summer nights. 
There was the drenching hospitality in the pervading smell of sweet magnolias.
There was the aura of limitless freedom distilled from the rolling sweep of tall green grass swaying and glinting in the wind and sun. 
There was the feeling of impersonal plenty when I saw a boll of cotton whose cup had split over and straggled its white fleece toward the earth...” 
This early expansiveness in Wright’s mind prepare us for the elegant motif of reaching—beyond circumstances and obvious information, for truths (fundamental, enduring, portraits of humanity). Wright’s project of interviewing and writing profiles of his fellow Black Communists seems to come from this same poetic impulse: a need to reflect the complexity of the world and reveal it. He does, on some level, have faith in the potential improvement of the world, in the idea that communication (through writing and reading) could move us to a place of better understanding of each other. Writing and reading become the things he still follows and pursues, even in the face of major disappointments and disillusionment, and he—aptly—ends the memoir on this note, having cemented reading and writing as the central, enduring things for him. He writes, “I wanted to try to build a bridge of words between me and that world outside, that world which was so distant and elusive that it seemed unreal.” Both Wright’s stubbornness and his misfit feeling seem brought to bear here...even in the face of that feeling (of not being able to understand the world, to relate easily to others, to see his perspective aligned with and reflected in others), Wright continues, stubbornly, to try. “I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words...” He ends on this note of conviction, of striving in spite of everything stacked against him. And it is not idealism. It is not blind-faith. It’s his stubbornness and inability to not rise up and talk back. It’s an unusual and specific motivation. 
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go-redgirl · 4 years
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WH Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on Impeachment: Democrats ‘Trying to Overturn 2016 Because They Know What’s Coming for Them in 2020’
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily for an exclusive interview to discuss President Donald Trump’s letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasting the impeachment process. She described impeachment as a desperate Democrat effort to overturn the 2016 election because they know President Trump is likely to win reelection in 2020.
“It’s such a partisan issue right now, and this will be a partisan impeachment. This is going to change things forever. 
Future presidents will have to worry about this very thing – and that would be Republican or Democrat,” she said.Grisham said President Trump personally composed the letter to Pelosi because he wanted to “put this down on paper for future generations because he is seeing what this is going to do for years to come.
”“They are truly changing history because they don’t like his policies,” she said of the Democrats. “It’s a very, very sad day.”Grisham said Democrats would proceed with their impeachment vote despite growing public opposition, particularly in must-win battleground states, because they want to “overturn the 2016 election” and have been trying to do so ever since President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.“From the very beginning, the Democrats have been calling for his impeachment – and that’s prior to his success,” she noted. 
“Since then, he has had nothing but success, and they see what’s coming for 2020.”“It’s not just the president,” she pointed out.
 “The president noted in his letter that his family has been hurt by this. Here you’ve got a family – Mrs. Trump – who has been working so hard on behalf of the children of this country. You’ve got Ivanka Trump, who has been pushing relentlessly for paid child leave and women’s empowerment all over the world, and you’ve got Jared, who has been pushing for Middle East peace, for crying out loud.” 
“You’ve got a whole family who have been working really hard on behalf of this country and who continue to be abused and demonized by the Democrats. It’s just really unfortunate,” she said.She stressed the Democrats are determined to “overturn 2016 because they know what’s coming for them in 2020.”
Grisham slammed the Democrats for floating “bribery” as an impeachment charge purely because it “polled well with their voters” but then quietly dropping the charge when it was time to draft the actual articles of impeachment.“They came up with these two sham impeachment articles, one of which in our mind doesn’t even exist: ‘obstruction of Congress.’ That just means they’re angry we didn’t participate in their sham impeachment hearings,” she said of the White House perspective on the articles.“I think there are a lot of people who are questioning the constitutionality of it. 
At the end of the day, we’re excited to get to the Senate, where he will be given a fair trial. I hate to use that word, but he will be given a fair shake. Then, hopefully, we can just get on with governing for this country,” she said.“The president continues to produce results, as you know. We’ve got USMCA coming down and NDAA – all kinds of great things happening,” she said, referring to the new North American trade deal and the National Defense Authorization Act, respectively.“That’s what he’s really, really focused on,” she said of President Trump. 
“He’s traveling tonight to Michigan to speak with supporters. It’s amazing to watch him. I want your listeners to know that he’s very focused, despite what a lot of the mainstream media is saying. He’s not sitting around angry. He is continuing to work, which I think is obvious, and he’s just ready to get on with the work he has to do for this country.”Grisham agreed with Marlow that it would be illuminating to have a proper trial with numerous Democrats and people like former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, called to testify under oath about their actions.
“I’d like people to answer for what has been done not only throughout this process, but in the past and the things that have been done to this president and to his campaign before he took office,” she said.Grisham said President Trump was comfortable leaving the Senate proceedings in the hands of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).“I think we have to take into account what’s best for the country,” she urged. 
“While a trial may be a two-week trial, having people testify, is wonderful to think about, we don’t know if that’s what would actually happen. We don’t know what kind of games people would play to stop those individuals from testifying, et cetera.”Grisham found some grim humor in Marlow asking if Joe Biden might be charged with “obstructing the Senate” for his stated refusal to respond to its subpoenas – precisely the same charge Democrats leveled against Trump in one of their impeachment articles.“When the sham went through the House and we were afforded no due process and we were given no rights to have witnesses and every witness that was called forward was stacked against us – 
I think you’ll remember the constitutional scholars; it was three to one in terms of people who were in favor of our president – and now that we’re about to move into the Senate, everybody’s calling for ‘fairness,’ and people on the other side are saying that they’re not going to comply,” she observed.“Once again, the hypocrisy continues. 
The irony is crazy. As the president always says, we’ll just see what happens,” she said.Grisham said President Trump has not been given a “fair shake” by either Democrats or establishment media, with the latter constantly omitting vital context from reporting on the Ukrainian corruption story at the heart of the impeachment fight.“We’re used to that. We’re doing the best we can to get the facts out there and to fight back. We’re thankful for outlets such as yours that take the time to understand context and explain it to your listeners,” she told Marlow.“We’re just used to it now. 
We’re used to the constant siege and the constant misinformation and the constant attack on this president and this administration. We’re doing the best we can,” she said.“I think we’re winning, though,” she added, referencing the polls that show the public turning against impeachment.“The American people are starting to see what the media does, and I think the American people are starting to do their own research and see that this president is working really hard on their behalf and that the country is doing better,” she said.Grisham said the White House remains focused on the first phase of the developing trade agreement with China, on sharing the burden of U.S. military deployments with allied nations, and building up America’s military strength. 
She credited President Trump with doing a “fantastic job” on the latter score.“Veterans Affairs is very, very important to this president, making sure that our veterans are honored and taken care of,” she added.“And then, of course, the opioid crisis in our country – both the president and the first lady are very, very devoted to that issue and want to ensure that children and families have all of the resources needed,” she said.
 “The economy is booming. Jobs are great. We’re doing really, really good things. The president knows that. He’ll be sharing that tonight with all of his supporters. Those are the things we’re going to continue to focus on. He came here to make this country better, and he’s succeeding. Nothing is going to stop him from that,” Grisham vowed.
READ MORE STORIES ABOUT:
Politics Radio Donald TrumpHunter Biden impeachment Joe Biden Mitch McConnell Senate Stephanie Grisham
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OPINION:  The American Citizens knows whats going to happen to the ‘evil’ Democrats in Congress.  Almighty God, is going to send them where they belong, and that is to ‘hail’ their home base.  In fact, ‘hail’ is the home of 90% of the Democrats. 
They’ve been trying to take over God’s world since the beginning of time.  You’ll know ‘evil people’ in how the’ve  treat Almighty God’s saviors.  These people are trying to ‘crucify’ our President that have been ordained by God himself to restore ‘heaven on earth’ especially In the most powerful Country on earth (United States of America) and eventually around the World.  No other human-being during our life time has been so qualified for this journey that we’re been on other than President Donald J. Trump.
Christians around the ‘World’ keep praying for Donal J. Trump, his family and all of his supporters, because he’s on a mission from Almighty God to bring down corruptions by those who believe they have more power than the Commander-in-Chief of the World leader and thats the USA.   
Pray like you’ve never before.  Christians you faithful believers, should be teaching your congressional church members to keep the faith and pray like you’ve never done before.
Because ‘ole satan’ knows that his time is up and he’s fighting like hell to stay in charge (i.e, Democrats in Congress).  That’s where he’s been hiding with his flock who's on ‘display’ so you can see them and know them by name.
Every good deed is being recorded in the ‘Book of Life’ and Every Bad Deed is Being recorded for record keeping purposes.
Keep praying, don’t stop because we’re to close to winning this War on Good vs Evil.
You’ll know Gods flock by their actions more so than by their words.
In the Bible the scriptures wrote about this day and guess what?  We’re here! 😇🙏🇺🇸
Don’t let what the people did to ‘Jesus’ who was sent to earth to save our lives happened to another God sent person, President Donald J. Trump.  Because you have a second chance  (i.e, second coming) to correct that this time around.
Don’t miss this ‘second’ chance again believers/Christians because the power is in you hands.  Protect Gods chosen one this time around don’t repeat the pass.
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syao · 7 years
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#SyaoRereads: The Sparrow by Goldberry
It’s #NejiTenMonth this July, so in the spirit of celebration for my favorite Naruto OTP (next to the unfathomable ShinoHina, haha!), I’m re-reading and reviewing NejiTen stories that really, really left an impression on me.
Today, I’m starting with who I personally feel is the best NejiTen author in the fandom.  Goldberry crafts such excellent, in-character stories. (I reckon she understands Neji and Tenten far better than Kishimoto himself does!)
Among her library of great reads, I consider The Sparrow as my favorite. I don’t usually like angst, but I fell in love at first read with this fanfic.
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For those who haven’t read it yet, spoilers abound. Also, please go and read the story right now. It’s goddamn beautiful.
Birds fly and die and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Except for Tenten, she tries.
This 10-minute read packs a lot of powerful symbolism and emotion, beginning from 7-year-old Tenten’s incredible compassion and selflessness shown in her treatment of the titular sparrow. The simple, age-appropriate explanation of young Tenten’s concern for the animal and its ties to Hyuuga Neji built the foundation of her protectiveness and affection for him later on in the story.
It was Neji who caught her, a flash of confusion crossing his face before his features resumed their normal flat expression. She knew he couldn't understand how she had failed to save herself, how she could have miscalculated so badly as to fall prey to such a simple mistake...
I loved this catch scene. It was described so vividly that I could visualize the whole scene as an anime filler sequence. 
One thing I always struggle with in writing NejiTen stories is how to show restraint in handling Neji, particularly his interactions with Tenten. Canonically, he doesn’t speak much or demonstrates emotions. He’s no Rock Lee who readily jumped into the arena during the Chuunin Exams arc out of worry for embattled Tenten. This makes it hard to move the plot along.
But in this story, Goldberry capitalizes on this. The story is mostly told from Tenten’s POV, and her seeing a change in expression in usually poker-faced Neji makes the scene more impactful. Yet the same POV shields us from what Neji was thinking at that time, tapping on good ole shoujo tropes of denial and downplaying of romantic tension.
"They're going to find out eventually, Tenten. It will only make it harder...in the end...if you keep protecting them."
She smiled a little, though the look was grim. "They have enough burdens to bear. This one is mine alone."
Maito Gai is frequently reduced in fanfics as a lovable buffoon, so I like stories that tackle his other persona-- the one that stopped Neji from the final move that would have seriously harmed Hinata in the Chuunin match and would have made his student regret it forever.
In here, Gai shares the burden of concealing Tenten’s “last, final sparrow”, adding to the element of dread that we’ve come to expect from Your Lie in April.
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The four of them were only halfway there when it hit her, a pain so intense she saw white stars and dropped to the ground, struggling to breathe, literally gasping for air. Neji and Lee were beside her instantly and she could hear their voices but it was beyond her to answer when she wasn't sure she could take another breath. There were some long, horrible minutes while her teammates could only watch their capable, strong kunoichi writhe on the ground, tears on her face from the supreme effort it took to force her failing lungs to work.
This passage played out exactly as the anime would have in my mind. The contrast between the “capable, strong kunoichi” and the writhing woman on the ground was such a painful contrast, and at the same time, it established how well-regarded and respected Tenten is in her team. THIS is the dynamic that differentiates their team from the rest of Konoha 11, where women are regarded as either damsels-in-distress or annoying nags.
Neji and Tenten’s conversation prior to the climax is the part that most moved me in this story, ESPECIALLY this segment:
"I heard you say, 'I'm dying'." His white eyes flashed at her and she could see the hopeless rage in his face. "Why didn't you tell me, Tenten? About the birds, about your sickness... I would have.. I could..."
"You could what, Neji?" she asked, tiredly. "Fight death?"
She had meant it to be rhetorical, but Neji's gaze met hers firmly. "I would try."
HE WOULD FIGHT DEATH FOR HER SAKE OMFGBBQ!!!!12340J!!!
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/clears throat Sorry about that. So where was I? Ah yes, the moment that the Neji wall breaks. His “hopeless rage”, the lines he couldn’t finish, and the “I would try” line. It was perfectly Neji through and through. And once again, I have to laud the writer for the impressive restraint. No overt “I love yous” were exchanged here, but, dammit, if a guy is ready to fight death for you, you better believe it’s one true love, hun.
The operation scene puts you amidst the scary, tense-filled moments. There’s little dialogue, yet it feels like you’re hearing and feeling all the character’s sentiments, thanks to the well-written exposition.
He was almost...frantic, and the very idea of that made her start. Neji was never anything but cool, collected, icily arrogant in the face of danger. Even angry, he always remained in control. To hear him now, it was almost as if...as if he were afraid.
Afraid of losing her.
Afraid of losing a teammate, her mind corrected, but even she didn't quite believe that.
Neji’s crumbling facade. Tenten’s blossoming epiphany on how important she might just be to him. 
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"She owes you a great deal. Without your eyesight, we might never have-"
"She owes me nothing, Hokage-sama," Neji said quietly, still watching her. "It was I who was repaying a debt."
What a great anti-climactic moment this is, Neji finally being given the opportunity to express how he feels for Tenten-- including acknowledging her kindness and sacrifices for him. As a reader, I felt Tenten was vindicated for having to go through all of this. Plus, what a very Neji thing for Neji to say, no?
So in conclusion...
Imagery and symbolism-wise, The Sparrow knocks it out of the park. The “less is more” approach to dialogues also helped make it feel more IC and believable, especially Neji. The transitions were also great and didn’t feel abrupt at all.
All in all, it’s a story worth reading and re-reading if you ever need a NejiTen fix.
Next week: I’m reviewing Neji Gaiden by Levi Ackerman. Multi-chapter. Dammit, bid me good luck with this one.
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abgailgibbs · 4 years
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sentimentalica · 5 years
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THANK YOU FOR NOT WEARING PERFUME
The poster "THANK YOU FOR NOT WEARING PERFUME" makes it clear that this area of the hospital has other and more clinical demands for hygiene. Anti-bacterial gel dispensers loom at every entrance, where the duty of decontamination provokes fear of bringing any dangerous microbes into this establishment. One is even encouraged to wash hands before entering the unit where the very few patients rest, the kind that lingers in between life and death and the kind that have so many tubes in and out the body that the general memory of them once being active Homo sapiens with erect posture and bipedal locomotion, is undergoing a great deal of torture. My mother has just been transported here from the cardiac intensive care unit. I´m starting to understand the few available waiting rooms they have to offer as spaces of laborious distress, feverish uncertainty and acidic hope. As if the sanitisation here promise something that cannot be promised. The second nurse that knocked on the door sits down with us. Me and my family are piercing her with ambiguous desire for truth. We read her body language, voice intonation and pauses between words with such a suspicion that even the slightest deviation in any of these languages could turn us into birds falling off a stick. We´re scared, and even though we realise quickly that the nurse simply cannot consolidate us from the dire pain, we turn to her as if mother earth has re-incarnated herself into the nurse´s veins and we are witnessing the beginning of the world. For a moment I believe that she has secret powers that can be utilised if one manage to crack a certain code. A code that would absolve my mother´s artificial coma and further alleviate the pharmaceutical burden of hollow cylinders. I fantasise about my mother´s return to the real world where I would ask her how the deep sleep was, and tell her that the three weeks she´s been gone, nothing much has really happened. Christmas will come again next year. A week ago, one of the first doctors had brought us all in for a serious talk in a small office with dark windows. Apart from her low voice and general scepticism in regards to survival rates of heart ceases, all I detect is her sharp hair cut(right under the chin) and narrow thick glasses that reveal bad eye sight and not bad judgment, as I would have preferred in this case. I want her to simply be mistaken, and that she´s one of those doctors that always make you get a second opinion from someone else. Her age is close to my mothers and for a moment, I consider my stepdad by my side and think that if this goes terribly wrong, he must find another woman. I almost forgive myself for having that thought at the same time as I wonder if that will happen and who she might be. Hospitals ads so much pressure to life, and what life even mean outside of this building. I recall my grandfather after my grandmother died, where he would juggle at least three women at the same time at the age of 76. The last one he dated I think was even blind, so the bachelor scheming made it easier for him. Silver lining, even towards the end.
Out in the hallway, I sit down and try to fathom the severity of the dramatic timespan; from waking up to 21 missed calls and a taxi ride to the hospital on Christmas day at 7 in the morning to camping here not knowing whether the gozzip magazines help or make the perspective on life worse. All the white coated labourers that are rushing, sometimes slow paced in and out of string opening doors, wearing comfortable sneakers. One of the first encounters with a nurse was a young and blonde woman with this particular dialect that somehow render spoken Norwegian into a high pitched cantata. If she would have brought on terminal illness as a diagnosis, even the worst kind possible, I would have taken it as an optimistic verdict.  As she shifts her weight from one hip to the other, I notice a round shaped snus box in the bulging pocket of her hospital pants and a funky piercing on her left ear cartilage. From her earlobe to my brothers blue eyes checking her out, I can tell that everyone is sort of moved by her more as a character than a nurse conveying crucial information. She´s not exactly Elle Driver from Kill Bill, but the fantasy of a nurse, and not just the uniform makes a lot of sense to me in this moment. She speak of my mom´s current condition with youthful grace and maternal sincerity that make me google professions in the health care field, as I wished it was me in there, taking care of her body and not someone unknown. I feel useless in this room which is half-hearted installed with standardised christmas decorations, itchy pillows, flavourless cookies and sour coffee. The view from the window is blocked by a crane and a man in orange workers clothes. His face will become my most graphic memory from these three weeks. The sky has never looked so grey and insignificant, it has compressed any imagination of a possible heaven. The blonde nurse asks if theres anything else and we all say no and thank you so much, where she replies; oh of course, I´m just doing my job. I look at my stepfather who hash´t slept for 2 days, still wearing the same clothes as he wore the morning he followed my mother in the ambulance. I listen to my sister who talks more or less to her own self-conscience about how she never wants to drink aquevit ever again, and that showing up at the hospital after a party is lethal to your nervous system. Especially on a day like this. She wants to hold my hand and rejoice into sisterhood which I quietly recoil from, not knowing exactly why, only that her touch feels like a forced contract I haven´t felt compelled to sign. A knock on the door in this room is characterised as an angst driven sigh catalyst- but many of the knocks are in fact from muslim women that are looking for empty seats and a place to crash. My mother is not the only patient at this hospital, and no one will ever, I retell myself over and over again, will be the ONLY PATIENT in a hospital. Over the next couple of days, these women as a tight knitted group and us as a tight ruptured family is at occupational war in this unit. Firstly because there are not enough chairs, and there´s only one tiny waiting room which holds so many conflicting emotions, that even to consider both parties in one space would create cumbersome discomfort. The prerequisite for potential grief is a self-centred affair that I cannot simply explain. As if the skin is eroding and extra coats become necessary, and you still feel cold. The brain feels like clouds of cotton, and not like the woven fabrics circumnavigating these female bodies as they humbly nod every time their scarfed heads pop into the glitch of the door and realise that today, this room is also occupied.
It dawns upon me that the sharing is caring concept doesn´t abide to this floor. The women eat out in the hallway, seated a part and not longer as a family. They´re spread out on one wallflowerish line, filling the X and the Y of the corridor. The smell of spices lingers in the clinical air, carried seamlessly by light human traffic. Everytime I go to the toilet I try to look at their faces for some compassionate contact. It´s difficult to put on a smile for them, although I deep down know, that this will be my only facial and gestural path to redemption. My step brother has just arrived with two bags filled with Big Macs and chilled fries from a drive in nearby, and that particular smell of burgers in itself puts me off next to the more oriental affair enclosed in styrofoam- both at combat and both appealing as its food produced outside of this institution. The Big Macs bring me back to my fast-food forbidden childhood and as I pick one up and unwrap the ordeal, I add some ketchup to make it more colourful. I take bites without chewing while my oesophagus cracks and forces by nature the happy meal further down into the stomach where it will stay as long as it wants. A late afternoon in the hospital, my father rings and as with all the consecutive correspondences over the phone during this period; the calls are being held in the hallways while walking up and down the architectural alleys. While I try to feel his far away presence perceived only as a cold digital voice today, a woman from the segregated group approaches me, and as I feel annoyed by this interruption I give her the time of the day as I already feel bad for my white middle class family being superior to the waiting room as camp site. I remove the shaking phone from my ear for a reluctant second, as I am sure this device could need a break too, in order to hear what it is she wants to say. The woman reaches out her frail hand from under the loose garment, as Mother Theresa would do it, and touches me on that part between the elbow and the shoulder cap. This area of the arm a parent deals with quite a lot I am sure, especially when dragging a difficult kid around who refuses any form of behavioural obedience. She simply says; stay strong. I nod and accept the kindness and attention of this comment directed at me, and once uttered, I conform to the idea of the universal notion that we all, during difficult times, must stay strong. I once saw this imperative "stay strong" tattoed on a strippers but cheeks. The openness that emerge from empathy sometimes doesn´t fly with strangers, as this memory of the stripper didn't fit as an incident to be shared with this elder woman.
A week more, and we find ourselves in a new hospital. The main nurse this time belongs neither in the sexy Kill Bill category or holy Mother Theresa. She has this idiosyncratic tick, involving her eyes slightly rolling backwards whenever she is saying something that is stuck between a thought and the tongue. Her eyeballs go completely white while this is happening, and as freaky as it may sound, she does return with her eyes directed at either the grim edge of the sofa or the empty kleenex box on the table. She tells us about the 50/50. A number I relate to bidding, and not to the status of a human being. She also tells us about the possible outcomes of my mother´s condition if she survives. The word "vegetable" is mentioned. My sister is asking if my mom would be a "vegetable" if she wakes up from the artificial coma. The nurse correct her, and says vegetative is the right word. Being a long time fan of words and their meanings, the difference between vegetable and vegetative has never been so irrelevant to me. Another doctor arrive with a crew of the "rolling eyes" nurse, a skin headed anaesthesia supervisor and another nurse with a pony tail lowered to the bottom of her neck. The third member of this interchangeable staff strike me as someone who might be dating the doctor secretly. The mood is clay in here- and by that word I mean terribly dark grey and mouldable. Like the material I despise more than over cooked spaghetti. The patriarchal doctor begins to formulate something we have already been told million times, and before he can continue my mind wanders off to his fancy Mercedes(maybe in chromatic silver?) and a swiss villa on the West side of Oslo. He probably has two healthy daughters that both study law and goes skiing on the weekends. I have forgotten the name of this doctor. I imagine him in the shower, longing for a mistress and a new carpet. But before I get to build my bitter and societal judgmental story around him as a figure, he says: "It doesn´t look good." And as I think to myself that there are a lot of things in this world that doesn´t look good, this one better. Denial is not a bad status, I tell you. It´s just impossible to sustain unless you want to make the leap of becoming delusional. Mixed emotions at stake, as I for a second wants him to be my dad and adopt me into his high educated life that must include a jacuzzi and a rottweiler longing for emotional cues that would enable him to be tamed like a golden retriever. I connect that fleeting disruption to me just wanting to get out of a situation that simply can't be escaped. I apologise with my eyes. I look at my sister trembling in her denim jumpsuit and red knitted sweater. She tells me that this outfit was a joke between her and my mom. I give her a hug, and one, that will last longer than expected because anything that would make the interior of this space worthwhile would be of a human interactive kind. She's way older than me, but right now, she is a 6 year old girl sobbing because my mom is late and haven't been able to pick her up on time in those solitary hours at the end of the day in kindergarten. I gel my hands twice with the anti-bacterial liquid and ask to enter the room in which my mom is situated. The sky behind her is pinkish and baby blue, making my moms pale appearance more outstandish. Contrast, in life, can paint a far more interesting picture. I whisper something into her ear that I thought at that point she would hear, but like with most one-way monologues, the wall is your squash field, waiting for a bounce. They have given her 10 litres of water due to severe hydration, so my mother is simply not recognisable where she horizontally has taken up a hospital bed. After holding her hand for a while, another nurse enters in a jolly mood, and I immediately get hopeful as I´m sure one cannot be this smiling if they don´t think she will make it. The nurse tells me that she probably can feel that I´m here and says her name out loud as if a response is expected.  It´s New Years Eve and I´m wearing a mustard coloured dress. As the nurse leaves the room, I point with my finger to my mom´s closed eyelid and slowly lifts it up to get a glimpse of her eye. Like Medusa´s left or right eye in the painting by Caravaggio, it looks stirringly dead.
"We have tried everything, but we will give her one more day, as we need to see how she react without any traces of narcosis in her body." We are back at the cardiac arrest unit. The three rounds of different epileptic medicines are not working, because my mother doesn´t have epilepsy.  The "We have tried everything" doctor´s hair is remarkably long and heavy, bundled in a thick braid.  I want to grab it and pull myself up to the tower with it like the princess in the Rapunzel fairy tale. Maybe the view up there is better than this one. At least up there, a 360 degree angle awaits. Why is it that some womens hair stop to grow at a certain length? As we depart from the last seated waiting room, another family outside is ready to take over. They have worn blankets, bleak fast food and insecure faces, that evidently, we no longer look for.
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lucky13-452 · 5 years
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In the next chapter of a fantasy series featuring five unforgettable sisters—the warrior, the magician, the lover, the zealot, and the gossip—an insidious threat jeopardizes a fragile peace. Four years have passed since the five royal sisters—daughters of the king—worked together to restore their father to health and to the throne while fracturing the bonds among themselves almost irreparably. Only Bluebell remains at home, dutifully serving as heir to her father’s kingdom. Rose has been cast aside by her former husband and hides in exile with her aunt, separated forever from her beloved daughter, Rowan. Ash wanders the distant wastes with her teacher, learning magic and hunting dragons, determined that the dread fate she has foreseen for herself and her loved ones never comes to pass. Ivy rules over a prosperous seaport, married to an aged husband she hates yet finding delight in her two young sons and a handsome captain of the guard. And as for Willow, she hides the most dangerous secret of all—one that could destroy all that the sisters once sought to save.
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Note: I requested a copy of this book through NetGalley and I voluntarily give this review, it is my honest opinion.
So I made a mistake. When I was reading the monthly NetGalley newsletter I came across the synopsis for Sisters of Fire by Kim Wilkins and I thought it sounded amazing, so what did I do, I requested it and was surprisingly approved. It wasn't until after I downloaded the galley that I realized that Sisters of Fire is the second book in the series and I have not read the first. I knew with my budget I couldn't get the first book before the galley was to be released so I had no other option but to go forward and read the second book first and let me tell you, it was amazeballs.
I thought by not reading the first book I was screwed but I was wrong. The way Kim told the story I felt like I got the gist of what went down in the first book and all of the most important information. While I do regret not reading the first book first I feel that me not reading it didn't take away from the Sisters of Fire book.
Sisters of Fire is what I imagine Game of Thrones must be like cause I never actually read/seen it. This was a high fantasy with all the dirty grim of the times with crazy magic, betrayal, warring religions, death, supernaturals and an overall sense of bat-shit crazy. The things that happened in this book! I was ready for shit to go down at anytime, the secrets that everyone was keeping that I was just waiting for someone to drag someone's dark deeds into the light and I was not disappointed.
Kim has a lot of themes going on in this book. On one had there is a religion that has gods and is added in the supernatural in a way and within this religion there is a lot of women empowerment, a girl is called my lord and will be king, not queen but king someday. However there is an opposite religion that put women at unspeakable vulnerability because men are held in higher esteem and hold all the power. There are hints at mental illness and the times are portrayed harder than I have seen in other books, it seem more true-to-form in some way.
Sisters of Fire have such complex characters that have multiple sides to them and are trying to do what they feel is best in their own way. The sisters were all so different, Bluebell the fierce warrior, Ash the undermagican, Rose who is passionate, Ivy who believes in living her whole life and Willow who is a zealot. Each of these sisters have both good and bad qualities and have to go through something in order to grow. While some have grown a lot or a little but another still has a lot of work that needs to be done.
My favorite characters are Rowan, Ash and Bluebell. Ash is trying hard to stop a future she has seen from happening, she has all this power but she tries not to abuse it, she just wants her family say and will sacrifice to make that happen. It takes a special kind of determination and strength to do what Ash does. As for Bluebell she is strong, brave and loves her family with whole being. She does the hard things to stop others in her family from suffering more than they have to and you just have to admire that kind of quality in a person. My favorite character is a seven-year old, Rowan, she is the best, a little beast in the making. Rowan has so many adult qualities for a child, she is special in so many ways and have so many burdens thrust upon her and she takes it all in stride. She tries to be true to herself while also being what the people she loves need her to be. Rowan is strong, brave and certain in a way that a lot of people, adults included, aren't.
As for the rest of the story, the action was very good when it happened but it was all the little clues that pointed to that crazy ending that had me hooked. I was waiting for the next thing to happen or for certain characters to find out all the information that I already knew and they didn't. I wanted to scream at certain characters to hurry up and get the clue. I loved the characters so much. This story was at its heart about a family and what goes on in a family, all the crazy, mean and complicated stuff that occurs in a family but with magic and swords.
Sisters of Fire was a fantastic story and I can't wait to read the next book. After the Sisters of Fire ending I have some major questions that I hoped to be answered. I also hope to hear from Rowan again cause like I said my favorite character, I can't wait to see what else will happen with her. One thing is for sure, this story is far from over and I am so happy about it.
Overall 5 stars
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heironymous-smash · 6 years
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Yes yes, the title is a bad joke.  I'm in a bad-joke mood right now, and I've written this post six times and am officially giving up and posting it, because ugh.
This is about a simple truth:  Right answers are almost never easy answers, are they? 
It's much easier to just be wrong, especially when tradition is on your side, than to admit the correctness of an answer that demands uncomfortable amounts of change and action.  (And that's why being right is awesome, and worthy of admiration:  Because it's damn hard to do.)
For example, it is far easier to punish victims for speaking out than to face the changes we need to make in order to stop their repeated victimization.
It's just effortless, in comparison, to take apart the story and look for emotional "outs".  To autopsy the victim's character in public.  To point out every "but what if?", no matter how irrelevant or far-fetched — instead of just hearing what's being said, and giving it at least a baseline benefit-of-the-doubt, prima facie and all that.  Which is what we say we'd do logically, of course, but we don't, because, well, that way lies some Really Hard Answers. 
We know, without a shred of legitimate doubt, that most people who come forward with painful stories of victimization stand to gain nothing from it — on the contrary, it often costs them as much or more, to come forward, as the crime itself did.  We know that the vast majority of the time, people claiming to have been victimized are not outright lying.  Criminals lie close to 100% of the time, and victims lie close to 0% of the time — even though we hear about "false accusations" with far higher frequency than they happen, for reasons I figure are obvious.  And on top of that, there's all kinds of social and life-impacting horrors in store for anyone who accuses anyone, truthfully or not, which even further drives the percentage of false accusations (and accusations at all).  So no, there's no logical or legitimate reason to silence or disbelieve victims.  But there is a very big practical reason.
To even listen long enough to say "I hear you" or "you can press charges for that criminal act"…it's a terrible burden, isn't it?  
The result of listening — even just listening — might very well be damning to some of our favorite cultural mores.  And once it's damned repeatedly or, heavens forfend, in courts, it becomes a whole lot harder to ignore, not just legally but socially too.  Keeping such things off the books and out of serious conversations is critical for maintaining the cultural view that "this is acceptable, or at least okay to ignore".
Look at the cultural norm that says that women's bodies are not, in fact, fully owned by them, and therefore that they don't acutally, in reality, have the right to determine how and when they will engage in sexual activity.  That norm is deeply embedded in our social mindset, and even though it violates our own constitution, it's still pretty visible in our written laws, too.  Hell, here in the 21st century, we're still not even sure if a woman is allowed to decide when she wants to be pregnant, up to and including if she has hard medical reasons to avoid it — so really saying and believing, as a society, that she should be allowed to say "yes" or "no" to sexual advances is quite a leap!  The law technically says that all citizens own their bodies and nobody can force them to do stuff with those bodies…but the reality, for women particularly, is way, way off from the law.  And that makes anything that shoves our faces in how badly we need to change it dangerous.   
As long as you don't acknowledge that you see a problem, you aren't morally or in other ways required to DO things about it. 
Simple as that:  Victim-blaming and disbelief is ostritch syndrome.
And there are plenty of people who know this and still defend it, too.  They'll claim that the change is just too hard, and that even though it's clearly the correct thing to do (to enforce sexual assault as a real crime, and to treat its victims like we know we should treat victims), it's simply impossible to actually face down that change.
These people, by the way, would have (and often do) say/whine the exact same thing about ending racism, and a zillion other horrors.  Their opinions should be shot into the sun, still attached to them if necessary…but let's go ahead and look at their claims briefly anyway, just so we can say we were fair.
Dear gods, say the inevitably-white-guys-in-power, how would that even work?  If we had to enforce, really enforce, the law that says that no-one is allowed to sexually assault anyone else without criminal consequences — what would that even look like? 
Well, it would look different, sure.  Just like it looks different now that we enforce child-labor laws, and no longer allow people to sell heroin over the counter as snake-oil remedies.  Enforcing laws changes things, and change is scary, but listen to what we're saying here:  We want to keep abusing women and girls (and others), because moving away from it involves prosecuting a bunch of (mostly) guys, and that's difficult and scary.  How such an argument as that can hold any water is beyond me, but I swear I've heard it from sitting congresspeople at least five times this week.
The social calculus they, and those who think like them, are doing is clear:  Years of trauma for X women is way better than civic punishment for X men.  By not enforcing the law, we're enabling the behavior and we know it … but godsDAMN is it easier. 
Not right.  Easier.
What if sexual assault was just, like, a misdemeanor and a fine, but it actually happened to most people who did it, like traffic tickets or doing jail time for robbing gas stations?  While it's easy and simple from one angle, from another, it's daunting even to imagine.  How many men do you know who'd have records?  I can't count, and I know mostly awesome, sex-assault-free men.  I mean geez, when it comes to things like congresspeople, we'd probably have to make at least half of them women just to fill in the gaps from the ones now in jail!  (Sorry…not sorry?  Yeah, not really sorry.)
"How many men would be left?" someone actually said to me.  
And that's a damn good point, but it's sure as hell not a point in favor of keeping the status quo, and keeping victims silent.  
That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.
But oh man, it's much, much easier to just ad hominem the problem away than to conduct a fair investigation. 
Let's just do it among ourselves, or on the news, where misdirection and word-slinging and emotional appeals have much more power than they do in a courtroom. 
That'll keep our chances of being able to ignore this a while longer at maximum.
It's just SO. MUCH. EASIER to find a reason, any reason, to not believe this one person this one time.  Even if it's the 10,000th time this year, and the third woman this week.  
Let's say "he said/she said" every time, when even little news blogs understand by now the psychosocial mechanisms that make it appear (falsely) that way — but it's so, so much easier.
Let's also claim, when we can, that it's about political parties, even though all political entities are beholden to uphold the law — and with the strictest and most careful hand, when we're talking about something serious like a Supreme Court nomination.  If the person in question had counterfitted $5 in his life, he'd never have gotten the nomination in a million years…but let's say that this is political, because again, soooo much easier.
The thinking seems to be, let's say anything we can in order to avoid having to admit that we need to fix this. 
That we need to prosecute sex-offenders, even (especially!) when they're powerful/privileged, and their victims are not.
It's so hard to admit, isn't it, that everyone has the right to not be victimized — assaulted, raped, murdered, robbed. 
Black, white, anygendered, child, adult — you know, that whole thing we say we do, and take credit for at every opportunity, America.  
It's the much-harder answer. it is.  Shutting up or shouting down the people who complain about being victimized is sooooooo much easier.  But it's provably wrong, and you can prove it by simply noticing that it hasn't worked.  Silencing victims, shredding the reputations of women who speak up, continuing the grim march of unprosecuted and unpunished offenses, hasn't improved a damn thing since Anita Hill, who I heard my mother slut-shame when Ms. Hill was testifying on TV and I was still a child in elementary school — but had already been sexually assaulted once.  
My own mother, who I'm sure if she'd known it was about me (i.e. affected her) would have changed her tune fast, taught me a good solid lesson with that comment, a lesson about how "good women" in this country don't make a fuss when they're assaulted, or abused, or cost their livelihoods because men wanted to do criminally-unallowable things with their bodies.
What if, I wonder, we admitted this, as a start at the hard path of right answer:  People who are victimized deserve the space to speak up, without being shouted down, or shamed for not staying silent.  What if kids sitting in front of the TV today didn't hear their parents say, "She's probably promiscuous" (figuring that you don't know the word, but being wrong) — but rather, "oh crap, that sucks, I hope there's a good and fair trial for her and that this douche gets jail-time if it's true"?   
That's not so hard to imagine, I think.
Would there be any men left?  Yes of course, there'd be plenty, because it's not a miracle when a man doesn't sexually assault women, or even when he screws up and does it a little and then learns his lesson and stops — you know, like regular people do with every other wrong thing out there.  Criminals don't actually get shot into the sun, you know, and their lives aren't "over" — they suffer less than their victims most of the time, remember.  That there's a victim standing there talking about it is a pretty good sign that the criminal will survive their punishment and be just fine, assuming they choose to, you know, stop assaulting women.  
Repeat offenders, well, I'm all for the "shooting into the sun" solution if anybody else is.  But probably they'll just be in jail a lot, like most serial criminals are. 
Not exactly the scary apocalypse it's made out to be by those who are afraid of change.  The people willing to sacrifice women and our entire national, and human, goal of equality to avoid the scary-scary change are defending…wait for it…the right of some percentage of men to avoid having to do time and pay legal reparations for their criminal behavior, after which they'd then (hopefully) go about their lives and be better people afterwards.  That's the system we've got, and all we're talking about here is applying it fairly.
That's it.  That's the scary thing we're avoiding by shaming, silencing, picking apart and refusing to listen to victims…over and over again, more every week and month.  For what?  To protect whom, and why?
And the men who wouldn't be "left", i.e. who would be convicted of their crimes and punished–yes, maybe even severely– we can do without.  In the Supreme Court or elsewhere. 
We'll be fine without their, uhh, sterling leadership.  Promise. 
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planar-echoes · 7 years
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The Guardian, the Witch, and the Angel (Innistrad) By Doug Beyer (3/21/12)
Disarmed. Disheartened. Dying.
The people of Innistrad are in trouble. With its protector, the archangel Avacyn, trapped in the Helvault, the Avacynian Church has no way to fight back. Humanity is dying out. The vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and other monstrosities of the plane have no plans to sustain humanity as their prey—they're playing for keeps. If nothing changes, humanity will lose forever, and Sorin's worst fears of a world without humans will be realized.
The trouble is, Avacyn's whereabouts are all but unknown to humans. She resides within the holy relic of moon-silver, the great Helvault that stands within Thraben Cathedral, but the Church that reveres her has kept her fate a terrible secret.
Today we'll learn how one cathar found herself burdened with a duty that will put her on a collision course with a planeswalker. We'll see how an obsessive mission might jeopardize the battle within that planeswalker's soul. And, as the Avacyn Restored Prerelease approaches, we'll see how you can play a role in Avacyn's release—and help determine the fate of the humans of Innistrad.
 Thalia's Rapid Rise
Thalia was one of Gavony's most promising cathars. As a young inquisitor, soldier, and vampire slayer, she proved her worth soon after graduating from the academy at the Elgaud Grounds. She was an excellent swordsperson, besting old vampires of several bloodlines and earning a reputation for cunning on the battlefield, all within months of becoming a cathar. But it was her obstinately caring soul that distinguished her and earned her a place among Thraben's elite ranks.
When she was only a second-year cathar, she attracted the attention of a man called Lothar, the so-called Guardian of Thraben, a revered soldier who led a force of elite protectors in service of the Lunarch. Lothar witnessed Thalia charging into an entire howlpack of Krallenhorde werewolves to rescue a single old man, and was impressed with her selfless valor. The young cathar slashed and fought and risked everything for a single innocent soul, and Lothar made her part of his elite guardians that very day. Soon, she rose to become Lothar's second in command, entrusted to help him defend the High City of Thraben.
As Lothar's trusted right hand, Thalia learned of the Helvault, the great silver obelisk in the Cathedral courtyard. She learned that the Helvault was a protected holy relic of the Avacynian Church, but she was not told the secret: that the missing archangel Avacyn had become imprisoned within it.
 The Risks of Release
The role and purpose of the Helvault was known only to the lunarch, Mikaeus, and a few of his most trusted bishops. To make the world safe from demon-kind, the protector Avacyn had used the Helvault to confine those powerful, recurring demons she could not kill. But the Helvault eventually became the angel's undoing. The elder demon Griselbrand challenged Avacyn to a duel, landing boldly and heretically on the Helvault itself, right in the center of the Thraben Cathedral courtyard. Angel and demon fought as the Lunarch and his highest officials looked on, their titanic battle raging for days. Eventually, Avacyn gathered up her remaining strength and summoned the binding spell to drive Griselbrand into the silver prison once and for all. Griselbrand tricked Avacyn, though, stabbing her through the heart with his spear and causing her binding spell to backlash. Both the devious demon lord and the wounded angel fell into the Helvault, plunging Innistrad into a time of darkness.
With Avacyn gone, the power of holy magic dwindled. As Thalia herself had witnessed firsthand, in Avacyn's absence, the evils of the world rose to attack humankind.
Mikaeus struggled with what to do about Avacyn's entrapment. Should he work on magic that could sunder the silver skin of the Helvault, potentially freeing Avacyn? The Helvault contained the world's savior, but it also contained Griselbrand and the ranks and ranks of unimaginable horrors that Avacyn had trapped over the years. Shattering the Helvault would free Avacyn, but release all those demons back into the world, as well.
Worse than that, Avacyn's heart was pierced through as she fell into the silver prison. Inside the timeless interior of the Helvaultthe artifact's magic bound her in a kind of stasis, keeping her alive when otherwise she would die from her wound. If Mikaeus found a way to break open the Helvault, he might complete Griselbrand's treachery and let Avacyn be destroyed forever.
The decision was made, and the nature of the giant silver shard was kept quiet. Mikaeus didn't even inform his captain of the guard, Lothar, that the Angel of Hope dwelt within the holy obelisk—he only told Lothar to protect it with his life.
Lothar taught Thalia of this duty in turn. She never understood what lay within—she only knew that the Helvault must be protected from the claws of evil at all costs. Thalia took the same oath that Lothar swore: that under pain of death, she would never allow the Helvault to come to harm.
Then came the hordes of death.
 The Siege of Thraben
Geralf and Gisa, that sibling team of zombie masters, unleashed their life's greatest achievement: a vast horde of necromantic ghouls and necro-alchemical skaabs. They besieged the city of Thraben with their ghoulish army, each hoping to outdo the other in their mad sibling rivalry, sending waves of unhallowed creatures at the holy city. Scores of civilians and cathars fell in Thraben's defense. Ultimately, Thalia hatched a plan, gathering the straw from thatched roofs around Thraben to create a trap for the undead hordes. She outwitted the ghouls and skaabs, burning them to ash in a great circle of fire before they could penetrate Thraben Cathedral's inner sanctum.
But she wasn't able to save the life of her beloved superior. Tormented by strange, evil voices during the battle, Lothar plunged off one of Thraben's high walls to his death.
The Lunarch Mikaeus would have been the one to promote Thalia, to bestow her with the title of Guardian of Thraben. But the Lunarch, too, was killed in Gisa and Geralf's assault. The death of the Lunarch would have been grim news to the four provinces, and yet another blow to the perception of the Church's efficacy. So Mikaeus was entombed in secret, whisked away to the clandestine catacombs beneath the cathedral.
And buried with Mikaeus was the secret of Avacyn's imprisonment within the Helvault.
Thalia took charge of the elite guardians of Thraben, becoming the Guardian of Thraben in her predecessor's stead. She became the one human being who bore the duty of keeping the Helvault safe—and, unbeknownst to her, of keeping Avacyn sealed within the Helvault. She might even have been able to crack the Helvault herself, if she had the knowledge and inclination to do so. She might even have been the one with enough courage to face the demonic creatures it might unleash. But she had made a promise to her old friend Lothar—and to the Lunarch. She kept the Helvault, and her promise, intact.
Her protection did not last long.
 Deathmage on a Mission
We turn now to another woman who will play a role in Innistrad's closing chapter: Liliana Vess, whose quest has led her to Innistrad.
Long ago, Liliana promised her soul to four powerful demons in exchange for everlasting youth and an extraordinary command over death magic. But although she enjoys the benefits of that dark deal, Liliana isn't one to pay her debts fair and square. Believing that slaying those demons will free her from her soul-debt, she's been on a mission of destruction across many planes.
She has already killed Kothophed, the first of the four demons who claim her soul. But that has not brought her peace. She still sees the marks that glow on her body when she uses magic, the runic terms of her contract that are inscribed directly on her skin. And the dark power of the artifact she holds, the Chain Veil, tempts her with ever-greater power the more she uses it. She hopes that killing the next on her list will improve her lot.
She knows the demon Griselbrand resides somewhere on the plane of Innistrad. And her search is nearing its end. By intimidation, persuasion, and outright threat of death, she has gathered the clues she needed to make her way to her destination.
In the province of Stensia she snuffed out devils while searching for information around the sulfurous Ashmouth. She eventually made her way to a minor demon, but the demon only taunted her and laughed at her attempts at intimidation. But she got what she wanted when the demon bragged of human worship. Liliana had a new lead to pursue.
She made her way from Stensia to the province of Nephalia, where she dug up gossip about demon worshippers in the towns of Havengul and Selhoff. Her inquiries got her to a name and a place: the Skirsdag cult and the city of Thraben.
But Liliana has another factor to deal with: the planeswalker Garruk Wildspeaker, whom she cursed at their last meeting with the dreaded Chain Veil. Even as she is on Griselbrand's trail, Garruk is on hers, and the affliction with black mana has only made the massive beast-hunter all the more relentless.
Thus far, Griselbrand has proved to be frustratingly shy. Liliana must make her way to Thraben and find out more about the Skirsdag cult, in hopes that someone will know the demon's whereabouts. In the meantime, she is beginning to feel doubts about the wisdom of using the Chain Veil to further her death magic. Its insistence has been growing—alarmingly so. But she's not sure she will be able to defeat Garruk without the artifact's power, and the cursed beast-mage pursues her tirelessly. She'll need to evade him as best she can, or outthink him if she can't—and all for the privilege of facing Griselbrand, Innistrad's epitome of evil power.
 Collision in the Cathedral
These two single-minded women will soon encounter one another. Thalia, the woman sworn to protect Thraben, who would never allow harm to come to the holy Helvault relic at her city's heart, will face Liliana, the woman determined to hunt Griselbrand, who would never allow one plane-bound soldier to stand in the way of her ambitions. And as they clash, the fate of Avacyn will be uncovered.
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ideadigezt · 7 years
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Times have truly changed when it comes to the context available for the viewing of the general public. Back then, rules were very strict, and a lot of texts and messages were not allowed to reach the media. Of course, literature was not excluded. Many of the most celebrated novels today were actually censored or banned during its time since they were believed to corrupt the youth and promote unpleasant behaviour and thinking. Racism, sex, profanity, and criticisms toward society were only some of the topics that were most commonly censored. Today, you’re lucky enough to live in a time where people are more open-minded and individualistic thinking is allowed and often even encouraged. In honor of these wonderful books that were given much criticism during its time, here are five banned books you should read today.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird is a well-known classic novel and is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of fiction in American literature. And yet, many times it has been banned since it was first released, mainly because of its topic dealing with racism. Atticus, the father of young Scout Finch, is a lawyer who defended a black man accused of raping a white woman. Because of the book’s central topic of racism and frank discussion of rape, it has received much criticism and controversy.
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Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
The international success that is J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series which engaged young children to read thousands of page filled with nothing but words was not always accepted by the public. In fact, it is America’s most frequently banned book. There are two main reasons why people rally for the book series’ ban. First, because the content of the book deals with the supernatural and the occult and such topics are regarded positively, so much that the protagonist himself, Harry Potter, is a wizard. Second, because the book contains certain subject matters that is believed to be too dark for young readers. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that the book series is a literary classic that holds numerous morals including friendship, courage, and righteousness.
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The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Perks of Being A Wallflower is Chbosky’s take on life in the eyes of a teenager, inspired by J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The book is narrated by Charlie who tells his stories to an anonymous friend. Because of the explicit content of the book, including homosexuality, drug use, and abuse, it has been withdrawn from many libraries across the US. However, Chbosky did not fail to describe the modern obstacles that a teenager may face and these topics have been well addressed in his book.
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Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia is truly a powerful book that explores life, friendship, death, and family. It is about two children, Jesse Aarons and Leslie Burke, who tries to escape the burdens, hardships, and dullness of their life by creating a magical forest kingdom that only they can see. Although the book is considered to be a children’s book, it deals with pretty mature content and that’s why it is often banned. Some feel that the language is too offensive, or that it deals with scenes of witchcraft and supernatural, or that it promotes disobeying authority, and of course, the theme of death is believed to be too grim for young readers.
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American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
It is not uncommon for the works of Ellis to be criticized, but none so far has faced the level of criticism that American Psycho has received. The book tells the tale, in thorough detail, of the business man and serial killer Patrick Bateman. Because of its disturbing depictions of violence and graphic sexual content, the book has been banned in several countries around the world including Germany and Canada. Moreover, because Bateman usually targets women, the book is deemed to be violently misogynistic.
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