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pronoun-fucker · 2 years

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Perhaps it makes sense that women — those supposedly compliant and agreeable, self-sacrificing and everything-nice creatures — were the ones to finally bring our polarized country together.

Because the far right and the far left have found the one thing they can agree on: Women don’t count.

The right’s position here is the better known, the movement having aggressively dedicated itself to stripping women of fundamental rights for decades. Thanks in part to two Supreme Court justices who have been credibly accused of abusive behavior toward women, Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 years a target, has been ruthlessly overturned.

Far more bewildering has been the fringe left jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda. There was a time when campus groups and activist organizations advocated strenuously on behalf of women. Women’s rights were human rights and something to fight for. Though the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, legal scholars and advocacy groups spent years working to otherwise establish women as a protected class.

But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes.

As reported by my colleague Michael Powell, even the word “women” has become verboten. Previously a commonly understood term for half the world’s population, the word had a specific meaning tied to genetics, biology, history, politics and culture. No longer. In its place are unwieldy terms like “pregnant people,” “menstruators” and “bodies with vaginas.”

Planned Parenthood, once a stalwart defender of women’s rights, omits the word “women” from its home page. NARAL Pro-Choice America has used “birthing people” in lieu of “women.” The American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime defender of women’s rights, last month tweeted its outrage over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to several groups: “Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, immigrants, young people.”

It left out those threatened most of all: women. Talk about a bitter way to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

The noble intent behind omitting the word “women” is to make room for the relatively tiny number of transgender men and people identifying as nonbinary who retain aspects of female biological function and can conceive, give birth or breastfeed. But despite a spirit of inclusion, the result has been to shove women to the side.

Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations. They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own.

But, but, but. Can you blame the sisterhood for feeling a little nervous? For wincing at the presumption of acquiescence? For worrying about the broader implications? For wondering what kind of message we are sending to young girls about feeling good in their bodies, pride in their sex and the prospects of womanhood? For essentially ceding to another backlash?

Women didn’t fight this long and this hard only to be told we couldn’t call ourselves women anymore. This isn’t just a semantic issue; it’s also a question of moral harm, an affront to our very sense of ourselves.

It wasn’t so long ago — and in some places the belief persists — that women were considered a mere rib to Adam’s whole. Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts, was an important part of the struggle for sexual equality.

But here we go again, parsing women into organs. Last year the British medical journal The Lancet patted itself on the back for a cover article on menstruation. Yet instead of mentioning the human beings who get to enjoy this monthly biological activity, the cover referred to “bodies with vaginas.” It’s almost as if the other bits and bobs — uteruses, ovaries or even something relatively gender-neutral like brains — were inconsequential. That such things tend to be wrapped together in a human package with two X sex chromosomes is apparently unmentionable.

“What are we, chopped liver?” a woman might be tempted to joke, but in this organ-centric and largely humorless atmosphere, perhaps she would be wiser not to.

Those women who do publicly express mixed emotions or opposing views are often brutally denounced for asserting themselves. (Google the word “transgender” combined with the name Martina Navratilova, J.K. Rowling or Kathleen Stock to get a withering sense.) They risk their jobs and their personal safety. They are maligned as somehow transphobic or labeled TERFs, a pejorative that may be unfamiliar to those who don’t step onto this particular Twitter battlefield. Ostensibly shorthand for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” which originally referred to a subgroup of the British feminist movement, “TERF” has come to denote any woman, feminist or not, who persists in believing that while transgender women should be free to live their lives with dignity and respect, they are not identical to those who were born female and who have lived their entire lives as such, with all the biological trappings, societal and cultural expectations, economic realities and safety issues that involves.

But in a world of chosen gender identities, women as a biological category don’t exist. Some might even call this kind of thing erasure.

When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes. The formula on the right we know well: Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the “Don’t mind mes.” The unanticipated newcomers to such retrograde typecasting are the supposed progressives on the fringe left. In accordance with a newly embraced gender theory, they now propose that girls — gay or straight — who do not self-identify as feminine are somehow not fully girls. Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are “masculine” and others “feminine.”

Didn’t we ditch those straitened categories in the ’70s?

The women’s movement and the gay rights movement, after all, tried to free the sexes from the construct of gender, with its antiquated notions of masculinity and femininity, to accept all women for who they are, whether tomboy, girly girl or butch dyke. To undo all this is to lose hard-won ground for women — and for men, too.

Those on the right who are threatened by women’s equality have always fought fiercely to put women back in their place. What has been disheartening is that some on the fringe left have been equally dismissive, resorting to bullying, threats of violence, public shaming and other scare tactics when women try to reassert that right. The effect is to curtail discussion of women’s issues in the public sphere.

But women are not the enemy here. Consider that in the real world, most violence against trans men and women is committed by men but, in the online world and in the academy, most of the ire at those who balk at this new gender ideology seems to be directed at women.

It’s heartbreaking. And it’s counterproductive.

Tolerance for one group need not mean intolerance for another. We can respect transgender women without castigating females who point out that biological women still constitute a category of their own — with their own specific needs and prerogatives.

If only women’s voices were routinely welcomed and respected on these issues. But whether Trumpist or traditionalist, fringe left activist or academic ideologue, misogynists from both extremes of the political spectrum relish equally the power to shut women up.

Link | Archived link

#radical feminism #trans activism #gender critical #terf #misogyny #I would personally argue that trans activists are not the far left but still

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self-loving-vampire · 1 year

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Historically, at the core of the modern conservative movement’s agenda have been its efforts to impose a particular family structure, one with a working father and dependent mother who plays the role of primary caregiver for her children. Through social and economic policies – namely, the erosion of the social safety net – conservatives aspired to make this patriarchal unit into the primary source of economic security and, in the process, sought to winnow the viable life and career paths available to women. They required the “protection” of the family, the right argued, which was one of the many reasons it opposed the Equal Rights Amendment that would have made men and women equal in the eyes of the law. The amendment, they insisted, would “strike at the heart” of what conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly in 1978 called “women’s family support rights.”

The right’s goals remain much the same today, but its hard-right faction has doubled down on their moral orthodoxy while rejecting many traditional conservative economic strategies. For this growing segment of the right, the primary problem facing the country is the supposed assault on what it sees as “traditional” American culture and family, led by the Democratic Party, the broader political left, feminists, LGBTQ+ people, and others who fail to fit their rigid views of gender. They want to impose, through the power of the state, stringent gender roles and social hierarchies, and to punish those who deviate from them.

...

Despite their exclusion from many of today’s most prominent hate groups, women are active participants in the hard right’s campaign to uphold male supremacy and create restrictive gender distinctions. One clear example is the so-called tradwife (or “traditional wife”) movement, which proclaims that women can achieve personal happiness and contribute to a healthier national culture by embracing subservience to men.

Women’s interest in the tradwife movement is, in some ways, a response to modern economic realities. The movement is “rooted in many young women’s sense of discontent with mainstream society and capitalist systems that – in the U.S., in any case – make balancing motherhood and work a near-impossible task, with virtually no childcare support, limited sick leave, and few protections for women who need time away from work for childcare or eldercare responsibilities,” Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a scholar of extremism and radicalization, has noted. Some women have responded by looking backward to a romanticized version of domesticity captured by the 1950s propaganda that forms the backbone of the tradwife aesthetic.

The tradwife movement exists largely online, led by influencers whose content depicts stylized domestic bliss – their homes, cooking, clothing and children – alongside captions that encourage chastity and, often, homeschooling, homesteading and fundamentalist Christianity. Tradwives present submission as freedom and a return to the natural order, before feminism deceived women into thinking they could achieve fulfillment outside family life and heterosexual relationships.

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joys-of-everyday · 1 year

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Love Confession

I love Shen Jiu. He is literally my favourite character. Maybe not ever, but up there.

To SJ, I dedicate this rabbit hole of takes. (And omg this ballooned into a monster)

Take 1: He’s a scum villain.

Take 2: He’s an abused, misunderstood soul who didn’t actual do most of the things he supposedly did. The Qius are the actual villains and taking vengeance was his right.

Take 3: Yes, his past was pretty bad and sure he didn’t do all of the things he supposedly did, but that doesn’t excuse his bad behaviour (he canonically, explicitly, very brutally abused a child) and ultimately, he’s still a villain. The massacre in the Qiu manor was excessively violent, and probably harmed a lot of innocent people.

Take 4: His actions and behaviour have to be taken in the context of the time. He lived in a world where violence and death were common, corporal punishment was acceptable, and subjected to violence from childhood. Judging him by modern standards is wrong. Also he was manipulated by Wu Yanzi.

Take 5: He still abused a child, not just physically but emotionally, alienated him from his peers, purposefully stunted his progress, with strong implication that he just wanted to crush LBH because he was jealous AND that he had done this to other kids. That’s pretty bad. Even YQY knew this was Not Okay. He just didn’t do anything about it. Despite being manipulated by Wu Yanzi, we see that a lot of the bad things he did, he did entirely by his own volition.

Take 6: But look at his face! How can you hate anyone with a face like that? (#PrettyPrivledgesAreReal)

Take 7: Firstly, there are two questions to be asked here. How do we judge Shen Jiu ‘in world’? How do we judge Shen Jiu as an 21st century reader?

To illustrate the difference, if LQG stabbed a serial killer in the world of SVSSS he would probably get a pat on the back for his hard work. If he did that in London today, he would be arrested for murder. We have different standards nowadays. But both questions are important, because I think most people would agree that just because society thinks it’s okay, that doesn’t make it okay in some broader sense. (Without going too deep into the theory of morality.) (Note this is a very serious question people argue about irl, so a discussion on SVSSS definitely isn’t going to cover it. E.g. how do you judge influential historical figures that had connections to the slave trade?)

1) In world.

There’s not much we know about the ethics of the SVSSS world, but let’s say it’s roughly 'ancient China' (sorry, condensing a few thousand years into one here). The unfortunate predicament was that the magnitude of your crime depended on your class. (And I understand that we do a lot of ‘oh look how backwards ancient China was’ in this fandom but Europe was atrocious too. Equality is a fairly modern take.) I think (and I’m not an expert so definitely call me out if I’m wrong but ew I just skimmed Slavery in Medieval China (Chapter 11) - The Cambridge World History of Slavery and damn life was tough) QJL beating a 12 yr old SJ would be sort of morally sus, but not like… earth-shatteringly terrible. SJ stabbing him in the stomach? Heinous crime. Now SJ abusing LBH is slightly worse because LBH is a disciple not a slave, but again not an earth-shattering crime – a stain on his reputation, but nothing on the level of the Qiu massacre. YQY could probably get away with not stepping in.

But also note, the application of the law and the views of the common people were two very different things. A layperson would probably have found the behaviour as disgusting as we do, if portrayals of villains in contemporary romances are anything to go by. (really random, but in the Romance of the Sui and Tang (written in 1695) I vaguely remember one of the heroes comes across a young man beating a woman on the street, accidently kills him, realises he’s a young lord, and has to run off because he’s about to be arrested. It’s meant to be satirical, I think)

On a more holistic level, SJ has a series of ‘character faults’ – promiscuity (arguably), disrespect of superiors etc. – which would have been judged more harshly than we might judge them now. (Being a dick to your boss is not really seen as a moral failing nowadays, although it may or may not class you as an asshole.)

2) As a modern reader

Again, lets split the question in two. There are roughly two stages to SJ’s life: before entering Cang Qiong, and after.

For before, we have the massacre of the Qiu manor, as well as various crimes under Wu Yanzi’s tutelage. (and note, ‘it was for vengeance’ will not get you out of prison these days, whether you agree with that or not (and yes, you can disagree. The law isn’t what is right, the law should be what we aim to make what is right)). There’s a reason there is a separate justice system for adolescents and adults – for one, we appreciate nowadays that adolescents are so heavily influenced by their environment that judging them by the same standards as adults is wrong. Giving Shen Jiu’s upbringing, I am going to tentatively put aside all of the things he has done in this stage of his life.

Now the primary failing of SJ’s character that we see during his time as peak lord is obviously LBH’s treatment, which by any modern standards would be a hideous, headline-worthy, prison-sentencing crime. And a bad childhood really doesn’t excuse that. Plenty of people have bad childhoods and end up fine.

On the other hand, many people have bad childhoods… and end up with bad adulthoods. Childhood trauma is linked to adulthood crime. Poverty is also another factor. There exists one (1) study which suggests a correlation between sexual abuse in males and becoming a perpetrator (please read with a very large dollop of salt. Abused becoming abusers is not as common as believed. See: The Myth Of The Abused Becoming Abusers | Defend Innocence. The issue is sensitive and complicated.) (Also I’m not going to argue whether SJ was sexually abused or not – that’s a whole other post. (which probably won't happen)) There is a serious question to be asked as to what level of personal responsibility can be taken by someone whose life shows a pattern of crime. Again, a very relevant real-life question people have argued about extensively for a very long time (e.g. reform vs punishment of criminals).

SJ’s life has been systematically stacked against him. His childhood taught him that having power excuses terrible behaviour. In adulthood, we see YQY systematically failing to teach him any better (and no shade on YQY – he had it pretty tough as well). Nobody shows any kind of deep understanding of his situation and his anxieties, because he is unable to communicate them without ruining his reputation (remember, slaves had few rights). We see his misbeliefs throughout the extra chapters – he is a bad person (for having natural responses to shitty situations), it is shameful for him to seek support and validation (toxic masculinity being harmful to men!), it’s better to be misunderstood than to be judged as weak. SQH suggests that after LQG’s death, SJ fully had a mental breakdown.

Trauma and mental health problems ruin people. (And btw, the stereotype that people with mental health problems are dangerous is extremely harmful.) That being said, being depressed can make you a pretty nasty person to the people around you. And I don’t just mean asking more of people sometimes, I mean the full-blown ‘knowing exactly what will hurt someone and doing it, out of spite’ kind of nasty. It’s a scary place to be in, that is extremely difficult to overcome without dedicated help. (And there’s strong evidence to suggest that adverse childhood experiences strongly correlate to health problems, e.g. mental health problems in later life. See the ACE studies.)

I think the question of how we judge SJ is so complicated, not least because we don’t actually know that much about him, but more so because actually what we’re all debating back and forth is a Very Hard Question. How do you judge someone like Nicky Cruz, gang member turned Christian Evangelist? Or even harder questions – if certain minority groups are statistically more likely to commit crimes, how do you deal with that? Sure, people who cause harm to others should be punished accordingly, but labelling them a villain and chucking them into prison causes mass injustice.

SJ is not a shining symbol of breaking class barriers. As an individual, he’s still a shitty person who did some shitty things. YQY is much better - he's a slave who became a sect leader and doesn't do much (much) wrong. But I think SJ does demonstrate that a better society for everyone (including SJ) leads to a better society for everyone (including LBH).

To ask other questions: Okay, LBH’s revenge was definitely excessive (I'm sorry but they got rid of torture as a punishment in the Han dynasty, okay. It's really not a good way to deal with things. Edit: they did not, but they stopped cutting off noses?) But what would have been an appropriate punishment? Could SJ, given the right circumstances, have found redemption? Was there a better path he could have walked?

Finally, a note on being a Bad Person vs being an asshole. Being rude is not nice. But it is not a crime either. Someone can be dislikeable and not really do anything wrong. I think confounding the issue is that SJ is both a Bad Person AND an asshole (in the most loving way possible). The former makes us want to call out aspects of the latter (oh look how he fought with LQG) (and yes, it’s explicit that it was usually SJ provoking him. Edit: it is not, see discussions below), but the latter is not a moral failing.

For example, had SJ not killed anyone, nor abused LBH, then he could probably get away with being an acerbic but maybe lovable figure. You can agree or disagree whether you want to be friends with him, but you probably wouldn’t complain about his existence. If he committed all of his crimes but was a wonderful person to chat with… he would be a JGY, and that’s a whole other can of worms.

Anyway, thank you for sticking with this monstrosity written far later in the night than is healthy. I would love to hear criticism/other takes!

#svsss #scum villans self saving system #shen jiu

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blessed1neha · 1 year

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Saturn in various signs

Saturn's birth sign denotes characteristics that cause people to consider you seriously. You derive your authority from these characteristics. These characteristics cause people to worry that they won't meet up to your expectations. If you behave dishonestly, you will be held to the highest standards for these traits.

Try new things, stand up for what's vital, and defy all odds with Saturn in Aries. Others will imitate you because they are inspired by your courage.

Self-reliance, security, and resourcefulness are the hallmarks of Saturn in Taurus. Your unwavering, unwavering confidence in your position commands others to respect you.

Critical thinking abilities, language skills, and multitasking prowess are enhanced by Saturn in Gemini. New viewpoints on the world and yourself are all around you.

Saturn in Cancer represents the capacity to support and shield. You exhibit a sense of being a part of any nation, family, or humanity. Your family is frequently to blame for your success.

Saturn in Leo brings charm, confidence, and style. You inspire others by being positive, warm, and upbeat.

Saturn in Virgo represents the capacity to solve issues and carry out tasks successfully. You hold others accountable for their actions, guarantee their sincerity, and make moral arguments.

Saturn in Libra represents fairness, morality, balance, and the capacity to see both sides of an issue. Although Saturn is very powerful in your sign, the need to compromise and the urge to be in command of things collide.

Saturn in Scorpio is associated with charm, candour when discussing contentious issues, enormous riches, and authority. You can be a fearsome leader, a dangerous adversary, or occasionally both.

Civil rights, morality, and beliefs are all influenced by Saturn in Sagittarius. You encourage others to take a broader view of the world and their place in it.

Saturn in Capricorn: Hard choices, daunting responsibilities, demanding standards, resistance to self-pity. You motivate people to take on seemingly unattainable tasks.

Saturn in Aquarius: charm, nonconformity, and willingness to flout social norms. You inspire others to explore new worlds and develop fresh perspectives on established ones because to your remarkable personality and sense of flair.

Spirituality, personal pain, empathy for others, and creative genius are all aspects of Saturn in Pisces. You compel us to recognise our similarities in order to adopt a more sympathetic way of life.

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theboy-thebitch-thelegend · 3 months

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if u dont want my long ass rambling about Alastor, and some minor spoilers, dont look 😅 but he's my blorbo and therefore i'm studying him like a fucked up little bug (affectionate)

I see Alastor's character as a combination, mainly, of three main traits/motivations, plus one that i'm more guessing on but wouldnt surprise me:

1. he lacks empathy. this isn't a moral judgment, just a trait he displays

2. he seeks freedom above all else, but if asked, would rather admit to seeking power above all else. i believe his attempts to gain power are (consciously or not) a means to the end of freedom, not vice versa

3. he sorts people (demons, angels, whatever) into two categories: those he has control over, and those he doesnt. he is capable of respecting and forming relationships with only the latter category. not saying theyre healthy relationships, but they are often at least somewhat functional and prove lasting

...

the fourth (speculation) is that he hates himself lmao. which i think gets very intertwined with number 3. he's very self centered, that's just his view of the world(s). he has more respect for people who he has trouble controlling because he sees them as being in the same category as himself (as opposed to them being in the broader general category of a puppet audience beneath him). however he's not able to feel anything much deeper for them, because if his only lenses are "idiots" vs. "people like me", well. he has no respect for the former and no capability for love of the latter.

...

i think his inability to feel empathy or love leads him to have interesting motivations. freedom through power is perhaps the main one, as i mentioned. but when he first came to the hotel he stated his main goal was to be entertained. while he definitely had additional motives, i do think that was a true statement.

i think he's fascinated by Charlie because, well. she's the princess of hell. she should theoretically be one of the most powerful beings there. she *could* rule hell with an iron fist, if she wanted. but she doesnt. and i think Alastor wanted to see what that was about, i think it intrigued him.

right off the bat, she refuses to make a deal with him. that choice solidly places her in the "people he respects" category, by virtue of her keeping grasp on her own power and freedom. since that's Alastor's main goal for himself, it makes sense that he is drawn to others who manage to achieve it. if she'd taken a deal, the rest of the season wouldve gone way differently.

and probably, not as entertainingly.

one of the key parts of entertainment is that you don't quite know what's going to happen next. for a control freak like Alastor, that's hard to come by, unless he himself *is* the entertainment (which is a big part of his character). but he stated he came to the hotel to BE entertained. i see that as an admission that he didnt know what to expect from the hotel. which, coming from a powerful being, is quite a compliment- almost a statement that he believes in them.

i think Charlie challenges those fundamental categories that he puts people in. he can't sort her into either one. he can't control her, but she's nothing like himself. he knows she has something he doesn't. and unlike most other people, it's not something he can take from her to acquire for himself:

the ability to love.

as i said in the tags of a post i just reblogged:

#i think its interesting that the night before the fight tho when he's talking about getting used to the lot of them #it almost seemed a bit wistful #like i always knew he was fighting for his own goal whatever that may be #and yes he'll make alliances and stay loyal to them #but i really do think he was starting to wish it could be deeper than that #i dont know if he considers himself capable of it #we know he has old friends #not just strategic alliances but what actually appear to be friendships by every outward definition #but i dont think he's allowed himself (or believed himself able to) actually *feel* something for them #even when he can and will play the role of a friend and ally for various reasons #i think the hotel started to 'work' on him more than he anticipated #he didnt quite get to the point of truly feeling love for them #loyalty, protectiveness, willingness to avenge- yes. but he didnt feel love for them quite yet #but i think he wanted to. #ultimately he still was fighting for freedom (and i think his attempts to gain power are to that end, not vice versa). but i think he #did at least *want* to feel love even if he wasnt quite able to yet #and i think thats the only reason he didnt die.

in the battle, he lost his microphone, which represented his power, the measure of freedom and control he was able to claim: it's literally a tool to amplify and broadcast one's voice. by most reasonable calculations, he shouldve died. instead, his power and freedom was "killed"- but yet he wasn't.

the hotel didn't quite redeem him just yet: but i think it made him consider things he never had before.

...

i found it interesting that there was no big fuss about his return. they had to all assume he was either dead, or deserted them. he had to know that they would assume one or the other: and neither one looks good on him. yet he confidently just shows up again and falls right back into the group. whether he realizes it or not, he knows on some level that they will accept him back.

he might not be able to love himself, and he might not be able to love them- maybe not yet, or maybe even not ever. but some part of him knows that they love him. and accepts it enough to go back without shame.

some might read that as more of a strategic move to keep furthering his own ends. and actually tbh i think *he* only sees it as that.

but there *is* more to it than that. there *is* love there, and he's connected to it in some way, which is probably a first for him. and i think/hope that *thats* what will end up being the key to his freedom.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor #the radio demon #i'm so normal about him. if u couldnt tell #😅

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ryttu3k · 5 months

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Fun thing I’ve noticed in Bloodlines is how human some of the characters are. And sure, it makes sense among the Anarchs and the vampires that are still young for their kind, but even Andrei, despite the appearance and mannerisms still seems fundamentally human and attempting to play up the inhumanity aspect of both the Sabbat and the Tzimisce. Kind of makes me wonder how long it truly takes a kindred to lose their humanity, and how it must feel to have that human element still existing and quarreling with the Beast within you, especially for the first few centuries.

Is it humanity, though, or is it personhood?

Personhood, being a sapient individual, would be a far, far broader category than humanity. Even on regular everyday Earth, there are sapient individuals who aren't human (I'm thinking cetaceans and great apes). In WoD, where there are large numbers of explicitly non-human peoples, the distinction becomes even more pronounced, and personhood, being people, would encompass far more than just humans. Fera aren't human, they're Fera - they might have a Homid form, but that form merely resembles a human. Kith aren't human. It's arguable that Awakened mages were human once, but aren't any more (transhumanism, basically). And Cainites? Yeah, I'd say they were human, but they no longer are, and that's a very important distinction to make.

Humanity isn't the only path a Cainite can take. There are Paths, which are explicitly not humanity, and going further back, there were Roads, of which Humanity was only one of. Yeah, Paths/Roads are described as groups of morals, but they do have one primary purpose - and that's to keep the Beast at bay.

The Beast? I don't think the Beast has personhood any more. The Beast is hunger personified. Losing to the Beast means you lose whatever made you a person. The Paths/Roads are a way of maintaining your personhood, of which humanity (or the mimicking thereof) is just one direction you can go in, and not the only one possible.

In the case of Bloodlines, yeah, most characters would probably default to Humanity - it's the default for Anarchs and Camarilla alike, and most younger Cainites would find it the most natural. Characters like Andrei, who are presumably on Paths (I assume Andrei is a Metamorphosist), have explicitly chosen a non-human morality, but with the same purpose - to stave off the Beast. Is that humanity? No, and he'd probably be pretty indignant if you called him that, haha. Is it personhood? Yeah. He's a person! There's no doubt about that!

So, there's Humanity as a default. Not everyone is going to do well on that, though. Younger Cainites, especially Anarchs and Camarilla, wouldn't really know any alternative, and if they struggle to hold on to something they no longer actually are, they lose Humanity and thus control over their personhood as the Beast approaches. A friend has a character who found that holding on to Humanity, actually, didn't suit her, she was struggling hard with her new instincts, and she was at dire risk of going wight - she would be best suited to the Path of the Beast, and through that, would maintain her personhood. She'd be more in control of her thoughts, her emotions, her actions - the things that make her, her.

'A Beast I am, lest a Beast I become', and all. Cainites are blood-drinking undead beings with a primal force within them inflicted by a literal Biblical curse. They aren't human, and while some can stay more or less how they were, others will always struggle. And for them, Paths are a fantastic way to go to maintain their personhood, if not their humanity.

Anyway tl;dr humanity is not the be-all and end-all and I think a lot of young Cainites would desperately benefit from learning about Paths, and while a lot of the Bloodlines characters do still fit humanity pretty well, characters like Andrei are very much no longer human - and that's fine, because they're still people.

#never beating the sabbat allegations am i #vampire the masquerade #vtm #vtm bloodlines

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stellisketches · 11 months

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For the worldbuilding of MCD how good do you interpret their knowledge of medicine as being? I don't remember if any other characters besides Irene/Aphmau have specifically healing magic that they perform (besides from maybe potions.) Do you think the majority of healers have magics or that maybe doctors of old studied Irene and her abilities and were somehow able to come up with new inventions in the field that the average non-magic person could use? Fictional healthcare is always interesting.

ooh you had me thinking hard about this one.

For one thing, I think progress in health care varies a bit by region. I'll make things easier by focusing mostly on Ru'Aun so I don't go off into a tangent. I'd say as a quick, rough comparison their probably up to 15-16th century standards as a whole. They understand certain things/activities/conditions make people unwell but they likely don't have a lot of scientific reasoning as to why.

Seeing as how persecuted magicks users are and the fact magicks cannot be learned, I'd say that the number of pure magick healers (like Aphmau's level of potency to just vanish wounds) in the region is pretty low. I could see these types of healers into two broad categories: I think the first would find safety as personal healers to high ranking noble families seeing they would likely be given their own security team plus the chance to live in relative comfort. The second type would be travelling healers- ones that would keep their power and identity on the down-low and just go from village to village performing miracles where they could. This would be a lot more dangerous but also morally-sound as they aren't being exclusive about who they heal and receive little if any payment.

We already know magick is an inherited trait, it's not something that can be taught, this leaves the only viable mix for medicine and magic (if I don't use the k assume I'm talking about the broader sense of the word) to be witchcraft and/or alchemy or something a bit more in-between. What interesting about this topic is that real world medicine/healing has had an underlying connotation of something magical/otherworldly for literally the entirety of human history up until, like, a couple of centuries ago. So I think the real question should be at what point do the Ru'Aunians separate natural remedy from the magical, or do they bother to separate it at all? Is it different depending on what part of Ru'Aun you live in? At what point does a cough syrup get the label of potion or elixir, or are all concoctions that affect the body given the potion treatment?

Personally, I haven't really decided on anything specific yet. My guess is that it's a very hybridized field where they don't make a whole lot of differentiation/hard classification on which medicines are natural and which are magic. You may have doctors performing witchcraft without them even realizing it and/or witches who sell the equivalent of tylenol in the bottle next to their nightvision and invisibility potions.

Also I'm just now realizing I brought up the subject of alchemy that I kinda wanted to expand upon but I might just save that for another time.

#ask #minecraft diaries #minecraft diaries fanfic #minecraft diaries headcanons #mcd #mcd lore #mcd worldbuilding #stelli rants #aphmau #aphmau mcd #aphmau minecraft diaries #mcd aphmau #aphblr

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cosmicjoke · 5 months

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This is a sort of vague, broad question, but what do you think is Levi’s role in the story? Why do you think Isayama decided to include his character? I love hearing your thoughts on Levi :)

That's a complex question, haha. I think Levi represents many things within the story of AoT, which I've talked about at different times and in more detail than I can probably give in a single response.

One of the main things that I think Levi represents in the story, one of the main themes he really encapsulates, is the theme of duality, and how two differing things about a person can be true at once. I talk a lot about Levi's violence, and how harshly that violence is judged, not just by other characters in the story, but by the outside audience, and how those critics, as the story progresses, are then exposed as baseless, and Levi's violent actions are better understood. Levi is violent, but he's also an exceptionally good person. With the sort of black and white moralizing that other characters, and often the audience, are inclined to engage in, they see Levi's violence and conclude that there must be something "wrong" with him, or that he's a "bad" person, based on his violence alone. But of course, Levi and the circumstances surrounding his violence are much more complex and nuanced than that, and his actions of violence can't simply be written off as a manifestation of his "badness". This of course is a recurring theme in AoT. We see it play out in a broader sense when we have the four year time skip and are given the perspective of the Eldian's in Marley, and when we learn the background stories of characters like Reiner and Annie, etc... Characters we, as an audience, initially wrote off as the "bad guys", were doing what they thought was the right thing all along. Or, at least, they started off thinking that. They believed they were the hero's of the story, etc...

Levi represents this theme on a more intimate level, I think. This theme of the importance of not judging a person or condemning a person for their actions until you have the context of those actions, and a better understanding of why they did what they did. Levi is really our first introduction to this theme in the story. Before the RtS arc, before they discover humanity beyond the walls, we see the 104th judging Levi very harshly for killing other people, flatly condemning him and claiming that they would never do something so awful. They're made to eat their own words shortly after, when they're placed in a life or death situation and have to make the hard choice of kill or be killed. Levi really represents this idea that a person can do quote on quote "bad things" but still be a good person. The concept of morality isn't so basic, isn't so cut and dry as "good vs. evil" or "right vs. wrong". Good and evil, right and wrong, are fluid concepts which change depending on the circumstances.

Because Levi undoubtedly encapsulates every other quality which we would normally associate goodness with, and define heroism by. He's endlessly compassionate, kind, caring. He's selfless in the extreme. He's deeply empathetic and sympathetic toward others. He's highly, emotionally intelligent. His main drive, the thing that motivates him to action, is always, always to protect and save the lives of others. He's a good person. He's a good person who's had to do "bad things" in his life, but for good reasons.

There's plenty of other themes in the story which Levi represents too, and why I think Isayama included him in the story. Mainly I think Levi represents the theme of life having intrinsic value. Through his unwavering respect for and dedication to preserving and protecting life, Levi serves as a counter to the endless death, destruction and cynical hopelessness that pervades the rest of the story. Levi never loses his belief that life is worth living, or that people have a right to their lives, and to choose for themselves how to live those lives. He never loses his belief that life matters, that life is precious and worth fighting for. He never becomes desensitized to death, or accepts it as testament to the cheapness or worthlessness of life. He never gives up on humanity, despite being the character who probably has greater cause to than anyone.

Levi also debunks the more simplistic, childish concept of the "hero" that our other characters labor under. Levi never thinks of himself as a hero, but he's probably the only, actually genuine hero in the story. Other characters like to think of themselves as such. Connie says near the end "we were supposed to be heroes". Reiner and Eren both wanted to be heroes, and thought of themselves as such in the beginning. Zeke thought of himself as a hero. But all of these characters set out to be heroes, which in itself is an inherently selfish endeavor, something done out of a desire for self-improvement or self-aggrandizement, and thus undercuts the very concept.

It's really only Levi who can truly be called a hero in Attack on Titan. Isayama included him in the story to serve that role. He's the selfless hero who genuinely gives everything he has for the betterment of everyone else, and for no other reason. He's the character in the story who represents the ideal of humanity. What we should strive to become, even if it's not actually possible. Levi is what it looks like, to actually be a better person.

#Levi Ackerman #attack on titan #shingkei no kyojin #hajime isayama

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bestworstcase · 11 months

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Loved your recent Light & Dark meta, but I am curious, how would you rationalize Dark's decision to fuck up the moon when he left, seemingly just to be a dick?

well it’s less about rationalizing (<- in the common sense of constructing a moral justification) than it is trying to tease out whether and to what degree dark may have intended for humankind to be reborn from the ashes—or in other words if he was primarily motivated by emotional reaction to salem/light/the rebellion or else playing the long game to get his brother to leave with him.

the… for lack of a better phrase, ‘lightest grey’ reading here is that dark let his brother curse salem, vaporized millions of people, and left the whole planet in flames behind him as a gambit to liberate humanity from himself and his brother, because he no longer believed that compromise was possible. that’s interesting from a character perspective but by no means does it make him ‘good’ or ‘right’—and in the broader sense of rationalization as simply explaining why he does things, it probably bears repeating again that dark is an emotional being who is clearly very, very fed up with the situation and it’s not contradictory for him to both have an agenda and act with petty cruelty while pursuing it.

with that being said, hinges OFF!

i’m gonna also tag in @lizarr7’s reply on the op because it’s salient to the topic and probably the best place to begin:

Light is afraid of change. I think that's the simplest and most distilled way of putting it.

Also I'm not convinced we've seen the last of Dark. After all, if the tree kicked them out on the terms that they couldn't return until they found unity or whatever, why would it let one brother in without the other, especially when the very reason he is returning is because they haven't? I don't think dark could ascend if he wanted to. I don't think the tree would let him.

as a point of clarification, while the tree makes the door for the brothers explicitly because their fight is harming the ever after, they are not exiled in the punitive sense and it is actually somewhat unclear whether they were made to leave as opposed to just being given the means to; more broadly it’s unclear to what extent the tree is an active force at all.

i don’t think the tree is entirely passive—the blacksmith is an aspect of the tree and obviously she is a thinking, feeling being with philosophical opinions!—but a core tenet of the blacksmith’s ideology is non-intervention. the joy of creating is “the not knowing [what the creations will become]” and balance is “an ecosystem, an organism, a living breathing thing” which “cannot be restored with force or calculation” because “true balance finds its own equilibrium.” that’s a pretty hard line against direct interference or management, and when ruby finds her in the tree, the blacksmith tells her “the only thing that can happen to you here is what you want to happen; the choice of what you become and where you end up is yours to make.” she offers ruby guidance because ruby isn’t able to articulate what she wants, but she can’t (or at least, won’t) make ruby’s choices for her. the red prince is an important data point here in that it’s demonstrably possible to ascend toward the worst version of yourself instead of the best, if you do choose. so i don’t think the tree would ever prohibit an ascension, for better or worse.

in any case, this is how the blacksmith recounts the brothers’ departure:

The Ever After could no longer bear the Brothers’ experiments. And so, the Tree built them a special doorway to a greater beyond where the Brothers could try creating worlds of their own. A doorway that would remain open for the Brothers’ return, and any of their creations. And what truly remarkable things they accomplished, whenever the Brothers’ creations have come to the Ever After.

i do not get the sense that the tree intended their exile as a punishment or imposed any restrictions on when or how they could return, beyond “if you’re going to fight, take it outside.” rather i think the brothers took this “greater beyond” as a place where they could resolve a vicious fight neither of them wanted to be having and reconcile with each other. before all of this happened they were constant companions who did everything together! they were always very different, but for a long time they found harmony in their differences, not conflict.

before they leave, dark glances at light and inclines his head as if to ask “ready?” and then waits for light to nod before he steps through. there’s some tension under the surface—dark is standing rather stiffly with his hands clenched into fists behind his back, he’s not super happy to be leaving—but a sense of camaraderie also. and of course the whole thing ultimately kicked off because the brothers wanted to try new things and see what else they could do. the tree kicked them out in the way that you’d tell roughhousing kids to go play outside. it’s a consequence of bad behavior but not a punishment.

hence my thinking is that the brothers themselves were deeply invested in negotiating a compromise and tried their absolute best to do so, but were stymied by their incompatible ideas about, fundamentally, the value of destruction and the place it should have in their world.

the narrative of ‘the two brothers’ is, i think, probably accurate in the essentials of what the conflict developed into:

Though they had distinct personalities and competing desires, they were still connected and did not feel whole unless they were together. Since they could not agree on where to go, they decided to create a world for themselves.

[…]

One day the God of Light approached his brother. “I have been trying to create a beautiful world for us, but your creations spoil it.”

“Your creations are almost as dull as the unending void was,” said the God of Darkness. “If this place is going to entertain us, we need to make things lively.” With that, the God of Darkness brought forth earthquakes and volcanoes that tore his brother’s continent apart into smaller lands, boiled the oceans, rained fire and ash, and wiped out all the living things.

(NB: the creations light refers to are the moon, deserts, mountains, canyons, and grimm. humans do not exist for the grimm to prey on yet so this is wholly a quarrel over aesthetics; light wants everything to be lush and tranquil, dark wants a world in endless motion. note how the main point of contention here is just “plate tectonics, yes or no?”)

[…]

“Brother,” said the God of Light one day. “Why do you take pleasure in torturing and destroying my creations?”

The God of Darkness smiled. “You take so much joy in their creation, I merely want you to be able to do more of it.”

[…]

The God of Light wanted his brother to see the world as he did, to comprehend the responsibility that came with their immense power. And so, he made a bold proposal:

“What if we create a new form of life together, one more capable and fascinating than the animals and insects? We can make them aware of what they are, and empower them to control and shape their world.”

The God of Darkness was intrigued. “If they can think and communicate as we do, they won’t be as predictable as the things you’ve made before.”

“There is one condition, Brother,” said the God of Light. “If we create these beings together, then we must share in any decisions about their fate. You must promise not to wipe them out on a whim; they must have the chance to find their own destiny and rule or ruin this world we have made for them.”

[…]

For a time, the brothers were satisfied with what they had made together and they watched Humanity adapt and flourish. People spread across the planet, and if the God of Darkness occasionally tossed adversity their way in the form of natural disasters like a flood or tornado, the God of Light then blessed them with bountiful harvests and fair weather.

The God of Darkness was interested in testing the Humans’ limits and admired their resourcefulness. Following a devastating earthquake, rather than give in to despair and accept failure, Humans rebuilt their homes—stronger than before, so they would survive the next quake. And though they grieved their lost loved ones, they picked up and pressed on. The God of Light underestimated the Humans, overprotective of their creations, but the God of Darkness saw how they thrived in facing challenges and grew in overcoming them.

[…]

“Your abominations [grimm] are killing the Humans,” the God of Light told his brother. “Get rid of them.”

“You protested whenever I wiped out your creations, but now you want to do the same to mine?” the God of Darkness snapped.

“Your creatures are not alive. They are crafted from malice and hate, with the sole purpose of destroying all that is good in the world.”

The God of Darkness scowled. “Is that what you think of me, Brother? Never forget: You and I are the same.”

with the context provided by 9.10 it is very easy to trace the lines of this conflict all the way back to its source: dark ate and light did not. dark understands destruction as a natural and essential part of life that brings healing, nourishment, and revival; light misunderstands it as something his brother did to get rid of bad things and he cannot wrap his head around why dark refused to get rid of jabber (a bad thing) OR why dark keeps adding destructive things into their new world (which, having been created ex nihilo, does not have a primordial wilderness for dark to clear).

to him this seems arbitrary, pointless, and cruel; meanwhile dark looks at light’s creative efforts and sees an egg that could hatch into something wonderful if only the shell would crack. and then once he’s added a beak here and some talons there and has the newly-hatched chick cradled in his hands, light accuses him of ruining the egg and he can no more understand why his brother is so upset about that than light can understand why dark keeps doing this.

the cherry on top of the irreconcilable differences sundae is that light thinks erasing jabber or the grimm from existence is exactly the same as, say, breaking up the planetary crust before spinning the world like a top. but to dark these are profoundly different—one is death, the other a renewal. a forest burnt to the ground by wildfire erupts with new life again; a town flattened by a terrible earthquake is rebuilt stronger and with more care, to survive the next quake unscathed. this is ascension! this is the pattern they have known and cherished all their lives, adapted for a different environment; an old song in a new key!

and the longer this fundamental difference in perspective goes unresolved the more impossible it becomes to find any common ground at all in the conflict arising from it. when we meet them in 6.3 they have been in the trenches of this ideological stalemate for so long that it’s devolved to dark spitting that creation is his nature just as it is light’s and light responding flatly that no it isn’t. it’s gotten to the point of “you don’t own creation, you don’t own humans, and you don’t own me” and the answer being, basically, “well i’m right, you’re wrong, and that human tricked you into breaking the rules because she’s bad and needs to be punished.”

it’s gone on for so long and grown so large that in a very real way it’s mutated into a fight about whether or not dark is an evil monster who needs to be restrained lest his malice bring the world to ruin, and while i don’t think light would describe it that way it seems very clear to me that dark has grasped this. as i said in the original post, resurrecting a virtuous hero who died in the prime of his life, at the request of his devastated, grieving lover, without any conditions at all, for no other reason than because it pleased him to be kind, is as clear and unambiguous a proof of the value dark sees in life, in love, and in creation itself as dark could ever make—and it changes nothing. it completes the circle and the original fight begins again, exactly as before. dark recognizes this as it happens and immediately capitulates, immediately takes full responsibility, apologizes, and corrects his ‘mistake’—and it changes nothing. light still lunges at salem, to punish her for what dark did.

so, either dark lashed out at salem in a petty rage because he believed light’s insinuation that she sought to manipulate him (which does not, in retrospect, make sense, because it’s preceded by dark folding into himself, getting very quiet, and apologizing to his brother, at whom he was screaming furiously not a minute before; he doesn’t seem outraged or indignant, and he really has no reason to take light at his word)—or, he saw what was happening and backed down so as to prevent light from trying to solve the problem by killing salem, a la jabber.

only that didn’t work, because nothing dark does actually matters anymore. dark can bring a legendary hero back to life as an act of kindness toward his bereaved lover and his brother will see only an abomination in need of stern correction; he can bow his head, humbly apologize, assume full responsibility, and undo the act that provoked his brother, and light will still condemn the innocent mortal caught in the middle.

there’s nothing dark can do, at this point. he can bash his head against an unsolvable conflict for the rest of forever while his brother flatly refuses to move a single nanometer away from his original position that destruction is acceptable only within a very narrow, strictly-defined set of parameters (clearing away the primordial wilderness of the ever after to set the stage for light’s design) but aberrant and unworthy to exist in any other context because it incites change and change is anathema; or he can walk away and be free.

except he can’t walk away, because this world and humans in particular are very dear to him. light is cold and unyielding and punitive enough as it is; how much worse would he become without dark around to keep the world changing and growing? look at what light did to salem in retaliation for dark merely granting her request and then walking it back to appease his brother!—how dire might the consequences be for humankind if dark chose to upend the balance by leaving?

these are rhetorical questions; the answer is that light resorts to demanding absolute obedience or else he’ll vaporize the planet. because that’s the ultimatum he gives ozma, without dark.

so dark, if his goal is to leave remnant, has to make sure that light leaves too. how?

(tin hats on!)

here’s something sticky i’ve been chewing on: light bites jabber and shatters him and then the blacksmith skips ahead to their departure, right. we don’t see dark putting jabber back together again, but we do know he ultimately was left alive, and we can infer that dark fixed him up one last time before they left.

light bites salem, too. the sound cuts out and the screen cuts to black for a couple seconds. then she jolts awake, unharmed, falling from the sky above light’s domain. absent the jabber parallel, it made intuitive sense to conclude that light snapped her up without actually harming her, flashed back to his domain, and then dropped her.

but the jabber parallel underscores the physicality of light’s violence: he rends jabber to pieces with his claws, he shatters jabber with a snap of his jaws. (beware the jabberwock, my son!/the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!) lunging down to bite is one of the ways light executed jabber—so when he lunges down to bite salem…?

dark is cut completely out of frame throughout the whole sequence of salem’s reaction to losing ozma for the third time. he breathes a blast of fire to engulf them and then we do not see him again until after salem is made immortal. this is a very overt implication that light made his choice to retaliate unilaterally; and given that only a minute prior, dark makes a deliberate point of leaving salem unharmed, it seems self-evident that dark did not want to kill her.

and of course this occurs mere minutes after it’s established that dark can bring people back even when light is the one who killed them.

and,

“If we create these beings together, then we must share in any decisions about their fate. You must promise not to wipe them out on a whim; they must have the chance to find their own destiny and rule or ruin this world we have made for them.”

if ‘the two brothers’ is accurate in the essentials of what “the rules we agreed upon” entailed, and light killed salem without consulting dark, and dark did not retroactively approve that decision, then light violated the rules and dark has every right to demand that salem be revived and allowed to decide her fate. if light insists upon punishment, it must be a punishment dark will agree to.

and light’s rigid absolutism demands that he obey the rules, too. he might stretch his interpretation of them to rationalize doing things that are not in the spirit of the rules, but he won’t break them.

so, who dropped salem into the fountain life and creation? here’s some pernicious little oddities that have been taunting me for a year that now seem… suggestive:

number one: after salem finishes coughing up water and realizes where she is, she sits up and, while light chides her for being selfish and arrogant, turns her head away from him to stare at dark. she is looking at dark, not light, when she asks “what did you do to me?”

number two: this fucking split screen. light is above his brother at the top of the shot but dark is ascendant, and once their relative positions have reversed dark’s half rapidly fades out to reveal salem (and both of them are shown whole, so their heads overlap light as well). the symbolism here couldn’t be louder if you gave it a bullhorn; salem’s immortality is the ending of light’s divine rule but a victory for dark, who rises (ascends!) from his inferior position beneath light and promptly vanishes, leaving salem to take his place.

number three: before the split screen, when salem is on the ground, the tree is center frame. after the split screen, she stands up, which—because she was sprawled perpendicular to the camera, so to be clear this is not an animation error—moves her a little to the left, which in turn has the effect of moving the tree off-center as the camera moves with her. look. LOOK at how this changes the composition of the shot!

centered. symmetrical. salem lies at the roots of the tree and the brothers are both sheltered by its crown but apart from it. (you can also see how her head is turned toward dark here)

off-center. lopsided. salem is still under the roots but her prominence in the shot is much greater; she completely fills the space between the brothers and they now seem small by comparison. the tree has moved away from light, who is now fully alienated from it—no part of him touches it—and dark has moved toward it and into it. his apparent ‘movement’ from the previous shot to this one is a descent from the high branches, following the trunk down, toward the bottom. (afterans ascend by diving to the roots of the tree and then rising up to blossom from its crown.)

these two shots bracket the split screen and directly reiterate that symbolism: light is removed from the seat of his power (and symbolically alienated from the cosmic tree) and dark gains the advantage, but salem has become a formidable barrier between them which, with the context v9 supplies, gives dark what he needs to be able to return to the tree.

and as a final point of interest, light tells salem that she must learn the importance of life and death before she can rest, and, well, that’s an eyebrow-raising turn of phrase, isn’t it:

“I will give them knowledge of themselves and their world,” said the God of Darkness. “So they can comprehend life and death, and thus they will also know fear.”

The God of Light said, “And I will give them free will, the power to decide what to do with that knowledge and choose their own place in the world.”

do you see? do you SEE? dark used light’s desire for retribution to guide him to this outcome, and he made salem immortal to make salem his heir.

more opaque is the question of to what degree dark anticipated salem going as far as she did, but i do think his characterization in ‘the two brothers’ is elucidating here:

The God of Darkness was interested in testing the Humans’ limits and admired their resourcefulness. Following a devastating earthquake, rather than give in to despair and accept failure, Humans rebuilt their homes—stronger than before, so they would survive the next quake. And though they grieved their lost loved ones, they picked up and pressed on. […] the God of Darkness saw how they thrived in facing challenges and grew in overcoming them.

dark sees in humans a cycle of growth and continual refinement through adversity. he delights in this and is “endlessly fascinated” by the human will to adapt and survive. he doesn’t allow hardships to befall humans to be cruel, but rather to galvanize them to achieve their full potential—and so where light curses salem with eternal pain as retribution for her “arrogance,” dark likely intended immortality as the furnace that would forge her into what he hoped she could become.

“the gods hoped that salem would learn from her eternal curse, and she did. she learned that the hearts of men are easily swayed.” she learned that the gods are fallible. she learned that light is cruel. she learned that humans do not need the brothers and that the brothers do not own them. she learned that humans, too, have a claim on the powers of creation and a choice in their own fate.

dark gave humans knowledge.

one of the brothers wanted salem to learn her lesson and return humbled and contrite; the other wanted to disabuse her of her faith in them and provoke defiance, and he got what he wanted in spades.

“my own gift to them, used against me.” / “you thought there was no greater punishment we could bestow upon you?” / “still demanding things of your creators.” these are the last things dark says to salem—his parting words—and it’s you cannot overcome us with the weapon i lent to you. you cannot overestimate our cruelty. you failed because you expected us to solve your problems for you. is he mocking her inferiority or is he telling her DO IT YOURSELF FOR THE WORLD IS YOURS

and then he shatters the moon and fire rains down, and he freezes the debris forever so that the violence of his departure will never, ever be forgotten. salem curses the gods and the universe and everything but herself as she wanders the planet waiting for a death that would never come—passively suffering in the last helpless vestiges of her faith—until fate leads her back to the land of darkness and she takes fate into her own hands.

look at this. LOOK at what dark did to the moon,

and look what it became after salem hurled herself through its reflection into the pool of grimm!

it isn’t mended but it’s been made whole. by salem when she rejected the fate inflicted upon her and recreated herself.

“it created a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction, and in time, she would find her adversary.” and it’s not ozma, and it’s not ruby standing behind ozma, and it’s not weiss or yang or blake revealed by ozma’s aimless wander through the white void. it’s light, who breaks the silence by saying ozma’s name and reveals himself like this:

i can’t add a screenshot because i’ve hit the image limit but the way light is positioned here directly repeats and exaggerates the serpentine motion of his lunge at salem and these are the only two shots in the lost fable where his draconic head is shown from the front rather than in profile.

and note the repetition here of this composition.

light delivers his ultimatum alone, standing in the place of the tree, against a backdrop of the white emptiness beneath the ever after. in the absence of his brother he maintains the circle alone, re-enacting their conflict and creation of the world by himself, unchanging, forever. remember how i said that nothing dark did actually mattered anymore? this is the proof.

dark is GONE, and light carries on trying to win their fight millions of years after his brother washed his hands of it and walked away.

“in our absence, i would like to offer you a chance to return” / “creation, destruction, choice and knowledge were the ideals upon which humanity was made. now, i leave them behind with the hope that you can learn to remake yourselves.” he tells ozma that if brought together, “these relics will summon my brother and me back to your world, and mankind will be judged.”—but he makes it explicitly clear that he is acting alone. he says i, not we, leave these relics behind. i, not we, have chosen you. dark has no part in this.

if dark still exists as before, then light is violating his own rules by acting unilaterally—and he has no reason to believe that dark will answer the relics’ summons or participate in a day of judgment he did not agree to and may not even know about.

if, on the other hand, dark left remnant and ascended…

well. um.

Finally, overcome with loneliness, the dragon decided to create a companion with whom he could share the cosmos and eternity—an equal, fashioned in his own image. Because even an all-powerful god cannot make something from nothing, the dragon divided himself and all his magic into two halves.

However, he destroyed himself in the act of creation. The old god was no more; in his place were two brothers, a dragon of pure light, and his shadow, a dragon of unfathomable darkness. They were new gods with shared memories and complementary abilities.

we have hard confirmation now that this part of ‘the two brothers’ is not literal truth, so where did it come from and why is it here?

the dragon divides himself and his power into new gods with shared memories of complementary abilities. something cannot come from nothing, and so in order to create himself in this new form, equals fashioned in his own image, he must destroy himself. this is a description of ascension which introduces the possibility of a god destroying himself in order to be reborn as multiple new beings.

dark is gone. he left remnant behind and we have not seen him since; light delivers his ultimatum alone.

there are four relics now, each inhabited by one of the spirits of destruction, creation, knowledge, and choice—the four qualities that defined the brothers and defined humanity in turn.

these spirits are shackled and wrapped in chains. the two we’ve met so far palpably dislike ozma.

and light, who has never ascended, who does not understand the role destruction plays in creation, who abhors change, believes that when these relics are united, his brother will return.

they’re the dragon divided. into four, not two, because dark understood that balance is not two forces locked in eternal conflict and understood his own nature to be more than a false dichotomy.

#TLDR HE BROKE THE MOON SO SALEM COULD FIX IT #SEE ALSO ‘GIFT OF THE MOON’

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kaiasky · 2 months

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lots of people in my local sphere are praising bushwell's self immolation as a brave thing to do and it does kinda fuck me up. In my worst moments there is no greater comfort than the fact that if I killed myself in a specific way at a specific time then I could turn all my suffering and pain into something commendable and people would love me for my death in a way they never could in life. I think that's a little incoherent but you get what I'm saying right? I don't want to live in a world where that is an "necessary" or "beautiful" or "brave" sacrifice to make but when people refer to it as that- I'm forced to confront the fact that I do live in a world that thinks like that. That I live in a world where I really would be of more use dead. Again I'm being a bit incoherent but I felt the need to say something and get it off my chest I understand it's a complicated and touchy topic for everyone.

(re this) yeah.

idk, it's... i think we valorize lots of people for dying as a part of broader culture. war heroes, people who were assassinated, every martyred christian saint. including Jesus Fucking Christ. And so in that sense i think it's hard to blame someone for seeing somebody who killed themself and go, this is martyrdom, this is heroic, reblog reblog reblog. it hits you on a gut level.

But then like you said, you think about it and you go, oh yeah, valorizing killing yourself is a terrible thing (both morally, in that it encourages other people to consider killing themself, and politically, in that if all the most devoted fucking adherents to your movement kill themselves who will be around to fucking fight for change??)

I hope and suspect that the people who reblog this kind of stuff are simply unaware of this logic and that through having it gently pointed out to them they'll also come to see what's wrong with valorizing suicides.

Ultimately like, I think the choice to continue existing or stop existing is a decision everybody (gets/has) to make for themself, but we should do as much as possible to tip the calculus in favor of "keep existing" as possible.

It goes without saying and sounds sappy, but to all of you, you wouldn't be of use dead. if you were gone, regardless of how or why, it would be nothing other than a tragedy and a huge, irreplaceable loss.

(Tangentially related, but the only advice I've ever found that like, worked for me (ymmv) for dealing with suicidal thoughts is a post like, "alright, if you're seriously contemplating suicide, then you can do that whenever, there's no rush, it's be a waste to not fuck around before ending it, so you should 1. quit your job and become one of those cool ski bum guys who couch-surfs in the summer and works as a ski instructor in the winter, and try a year or two of that out first." And so whenever I'm doing bad, I think alright, is today the day I pull the trigger on the ski bum lifestyle? And for whatever reason that feels more extreme than suicide and so it snaps me back to "hm, maybe there are less-extreme solutions than those two")

#cw suicide #cw self immolation #thanks for the ask!#(hugging you anon. if you would like.)

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grandhotelabyss · 10 months

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What we really need is a book in the style of Craig Seligman's Sontag and Kael: Opposites Attract Me about Sontag and Paglia.

I thought Deborah Nelson's Tough Enough—which I liked—should have ended with a Paglia chapter. The fact that it didn't, and for what I take to be political reasons, suggests why Paglia has the upper hand in my view: she's not going to be as easily recuperated by the institutions while she's alive. It's hard to imagine Paglia earning the admiration of a consummate professional like Merve Emre. Which is ironic, because Sontag proudly never taught and expressed only bitter contempt for academia while she was alive, while Paglia has faithfully taught for pretty much her whole adult life, if at a wary art-school distance from official academe. (Sontag was good at finding people, even princesses, who would pay her bills; Paglia perhaps not so much, or perhaps, to give her more credit, she regards herself as having a vocation.)

Politically, Sontag was always on the right side of bien-pensance, which I find slightly contemptible; people are allowed to change their minds, but still, if she'd maintained the political views she held in the '60s into the '90s then she would have been on the Michael Parenti side of Yugoslavia (or, conversely, her '90s views in the '60s would have put her on Updike's, Ellison's, and Nabokov's side of Vietnam).

On the other hand, Paglia was and remains too credulous about pop culture, and Sontag's later turn against it—if at times too much in the style of what Kael called the Come Dressed as the Sick Soul of Europe Party—was basically right. Almost her last act on earth was to canonize Bolaño, while Paglia was claiming George Lucas as our greatest living artist.

Paglia's historical scope and emotional register are broader, and for this she'll always have my heart; Sontag couldn't have written a Paterian prose-poem in honor of the bust of Nefertiti or of a Tamara de Lempicka painting. But Sontag probably was more politically sophisticated, and the moral conscience that mortified and tormented her aestheticism created tremendous drama, and for this she will never lose my admiration; Paglia couldn't have issued the prophetic injunctions of Illness as Metaphor or On Photography.

Hilariously but predictably, the moralist Sontag was apparently bad news as a friend, lover, or family member, if gossip and biography are to be believed, while the aesthete Paglia is by all accounts a perfectly kind person in private life.

(When dealing with moralists, you should always bear in mind this line from "The Soul of Man Under Socialism": "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." When dealing with aesthetes, you should always bear in mind Basil Hallward's charge against Lord Henry Wotton: "You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.")

Paglia lived one side of the binary dividing them to the full, every inch the diva dancing a step of Apollonian precision even in Dionysian frenzy, whereas Sontag allowed—or couldn't have avoided it if she'd tried—Athens and Jerusalem, never mind Apollo and Dionysus, to go to war inside her mind. In that sense, they're not an equal match. I probably love Paglia more as a writer—that is, I love the spectacle she creates on the page—whereas what I love about Sontag, not that she didn't write many unforgettable sentences, is the exemplary tragicomedy of the life of her mind.

I suppose those are some notes toward the book we need.

#susan sontag #camille paglia #literary criticism #cultural criticism

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homophobicgerardwayau · 5 months

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Ok, I’m going to foolishly weigh in on the Gerard gender theorising and pronouns debate. I don’t really have an audience so whatevs. But i do have thoughts 💭. I’m seeing a lot of reductive posts that lack nuance or critical thinking (the internet). Here’s the thing. We need to remain cognisant that at the end of the day none of us interact with ‘Gerard the Person’. We interact with ‘Gerard the Concept’. The rockstar, the artist, the cultural icon etc.

There is a filter, constructed by Gerard themself in response to a culture that must know him, by virtue of his fame and the deeply personal nature of his work. We only see what we are allowed to see through said filter. And when fans speculate and theorise, they are bringing their own biases and interpretations to a limited portrait of a person, a double that stands in to take the criticisms (and disproportionate praise) that comes along with being a successful artist.

I bring this up because when we jump up and down getting mad at people for publicly using “she” pronouns for example, we need to remind ourselves of a couple of things:

Gerard the Person likely does not have the hours in a day to worry about what pronouns people online are using for him. From interviews over the years, we can deduce that he has come to terms with fame and worked through much of his trauma associated with it. He has also expressed that he doesn’t care about pronouns. At present, this squabble is happening laterally between fans and does not involve him in any direct way. He does not need defending (what is he being defend from? Being gnc or trans is neither morally good or bad) from being misgendered. It seems the sticky point is ‘misgendering’ in general, which is a much broader discussion. One that is particularly hard to have when we are all out here with some kind of minority related trauma.

Because he is not a whole person, but an icon to us (it is difficult to conceptualise of someone as both simultaneously) we all tend to project a whole lot of ourselves onto him, more than we would someone we know personally. This is how being an icon works. Here we project different ideas about our own gender and sexuality and our differing conceptualisations of gender altogether. Personally, while I would not label Gerard as trans online, by my own personal definition of transness, he is part of our family. The issue is not defining him as trans by our own metrics, as we are entitled to our own conceptualisations of transness (I am of course, speaking from within the community). We should take into account that trans is not a clearly definable label. For example, there are people that are medically (for lack of a better word) trans that do not see themselves as trans. All of this is to say that people see something in Gerard that reflects back parts of themselves. Being trans is one of those things, whether Gerard defines himself as such or not.

The way I have seen Gerard called ‘she’ online, often seems in jest and I chose to engage with these types of posts in good faith and with a sense of humour. I assume that most people making these posts are aware that wearing a skirt does not make someone a woman. I feel that a lot of the ‘Gerard is secretly a woman’ is just a projection of a posters own insecurities around gender non-conformity or quite simply the desire to feel that they are in on something others aren’t, in turn making them feel closer to the ‘Gerard’ that they have constructed in their head. Instead of calling these folks trans misogynists, I think it would be more helpful to ask the ‘truther’ why they think they are so fixated on it and why would it matter if Gerard came out as something? What would it change other than give you a sense of validation?

We should remember that the topic of Gerard’s relationship to gender and sexuality is unavoidable once we get into the nitty gritty of his work. Deconstruction/reconstruction of identity and the gender politics of violence are some of my favourite ideas that Gerard revisits over and over again. It is there by design and it is also part of the character he plays by design. Kids are picking up on something but it’s the lack of media literacy that leads them down these strange roads of thinking. We should try to be sympathetic if we can. Why? Because if it’s trans people doing the transvestigating then it all comes down to the lack of representation that we all feel. Gerard shouldn’t have to carry that weight of course, which is probably one of the reasons why he doesn’t use labels for himself. He has the privilege of ‘hiding in plain sight’ as he calls it, and that is his choice to make.

The discussion then shouldn’t be be weather it is wrong to wonder about another person’s gender and sexuality (if we weren’t curious, how would we ever find others like ourselves?). It should be how should we treat others? It should be as simple as don’t send someone fan fiction of themselves.

As a community, we should be redirecting this energy into figuring out how to put Gerard’s gender into the hormone injection. I think this would solve a lot of societies problems lol.

#gerard way #my chemical romance #theory #queer theory #Nancy #gender trouble

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tori-tumbls-04 · 9 months

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Alright, by popular demand and after much anticipation, I present to you:

The Jedi Culture and Religion as Presented by Me, Tori

Now why the hell should you read this? I mean like, you don't have to. This is tumblr dot com, not a social sciences class, and I have not assigned this as required reading. However, I took a class on Star Wars, and we essentially discussed the irl religions and moral philosophies that influenced many things in Star Wars. This class really helped me understand the Jedi in a broader sense, so I think that my summation of it will help you too

WARNING: This post contains incredibly broad descriptions of religions that do not always apply to every aspect of said religion (This was a short class and we were mostly comparing religions, so going into a deep analysis on all the traditions would not have been helpful for our purposes. Also, because any religion is hopelessly complex, we learned the mainstream versions of them, so not everything I will say will always completely apply to every person who practices these religions)

If you want to read more, click on the links where I've attached them for references or just ask me! I'd love to gush about the Jedi so give it a go

Table of contents:

Buddhism

Daoism

Christianity

Conclusion

Before we get into this, let me give y'all some context.

Overall, Star Wars was inspired by the book The Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. In it, Campbell claims that every religion is, by in large, the same, which he argues by distilling down what he says are the main hero stories of every religion into a step-by-step plot line that can supposedly apply to every religion's stories. This is the monomyth, or the original Hero's Journey.

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From a religious studies standpoint, this is WILDLY untrue. Campbell picked and chose his stories elements based on what he believed fit the narrative, and not even all Western hero stories fit this narrative, let alone Eastern stories (for example, Jesus never really has a Road of Trials. He's born, there's a twenty year time skip, and suddenly he's the all-powerful Son of God/God Reincarnate. I think a lot of Christians would say that Jesus is their hero- a perfectly valid and acceptable thing to say, since that is indeed the point of Jesus!- but nevertheless, he doesn't follow the Hero's Journey). Also, you can't claim that every religion is inherently the same, that's ignoring literally everything that makes religion religion, and it makes white idiots from Seattle think they understand everything about Confucianism just because they read that one book. It's also not super well written and the book kinda sucks overall.

However, this was a really popular book and it influenced a lot of minds on storytelling, including George Lucas's. It's mostly regarded with scorn in religious studies spheres today, but a lot of screenwriting classes assign it because the Hero's Journey creates stories that audiences want to hear told. Lucas used it for this reason, but also claimed that the Jedi were every religion in the world distilled into one, taking broad themes and building a culture around it (paraphrased- I can't find the exact quote and I didn't write it down so just like trust me bro). This is Hero with a Thousand Faces, plain and simple. I think we'd be hard-pressed to apply the Jedi religion to every religion, but there are three religions that emerge as the core for the Jedi, plus a few philosophies. These chosen few are Buddhism, Daoism, and Christianity.

Buddhism

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Anyone who's been on the pro-Jedi side of any social media site probably saw this one coming. Jedi are inherently Buddhist in practice and culture, and we see it everywhere. But for the previously uninitiated, here's the rundown.

What is Buddhism?

**Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Buddhism. What I know is what I've learned from this class and from one of my best friends who is Buddhist. If you want to know more, I recommend doing outside research because I'm really only equipped to talk about Buddhism in relation to the Jedi Order**

Buddhism was created in about 5th century BCE by Siddhartha Gautama, who was a wealthy prince that grew weary of the material and physical pleasures of this world. He left his titles, wealth, and wife behind and traveled for years to learn meditation techniques and ancient truths about the world. Eventually, he became the Enlightened One, or the Buddha.

Buddha taught with the Four Noble Truths:

Life is characterized by suffering

The cause of suffering is desire and delusion

Suffering has an end

You can alleviate suffering by following the path to Enlightenment (aka nirvana)

Yeahhh Buddha wasn't really Mr. Happy Fun Guy. Essentially, to Buddha, everything is suffering, and I really mean everything. Everything bad is bad, everything good comes to an end and becomes bad, and the more invested you are in earthly affairs, the more you'll suffer because of how they'll work out (eventually bad). The solution? No attachment to earthly affairs. This allows you to stay on the path to Nirvana without making yourself suffer (and here's the kicker) or making the people around you suffer. The goal is for no human to suffer.

Now, Buddha recognizes this is hard. Like, he got it in a few years, but he's also The Best At Everything Ever. Most people take multiple lifetimes to get to the point of nirvana (reincarnation exists in Buddhism), and by multiple, I mean somewhere around 500. So the goal of your life is not to achieve complete non-attachment by the time you die, but to get yourself closer and close to non-attachment and non-suffering with each life. That means continuously and consciously working to do good and reduce suffering everywhere, even if you can't reach nirvana just yet.

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"But Tori!" you may protest, "How in the hell are we supposed to do that??? How do we know what will make people suffer and what won't???"

That, my friends, is why the good Buddha came up with the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment, or what I call the Cosmic Playbook for Doing Good. Here's the Eight Folds:

Right Understanding (accepting Buddhist teachings)

Right Resolve (committing to action)

Right Speech (telling the truth)

Right Action (avoiding wrong behavior)

Right Livelihood (not having an occupation that does harm)

Right Effort (controlling one's mind)

Right Mindfulness (being present in the moment)

Right Meditation (mental calm)

The Eightfold Path is based on three pillars: Wisdom, Morality, and Meditation. Wisdom says you must have understanding and fight delusion; Morality says you must have benevolence and never give into anger; Meditation says you must be non-attached and never give into greed (Is this starting to sound familiar?)

Now here's the key part: Buddhism teaches selflessness and compassion. And like yeah, I mean this in the Western sense of "don't be a dickwad," but there's also a Buddhist-specific reasoning behind this.

Selflessness in the Buddhist sense literally means no self. As in you do not exist, except in a constant state of change. Your self is not permanent, therefore tying things to yourself (attachments) is going against nature and preventing you from reaching nirvana. If we accept that we are fleeting and the things associated with us are as well- money, power, influence, things in general- then we may act selflessly and with compassion to other humans. We are all connected, so acting with compassion to other people will spread compassion further throughout the universe, alleviating suffering further.

Ultimately, this is what Buddha wanted for his followers to act, and this is why Buddhism distinguishes between "good" and "bad" attachments. "Good" or selfless attachments are connections made for the goal of helping others. The focus is not you, and when the time comes, you are content with parting ways. This person is not a part of you, simply a part of this point in your life. This doesn't mean they can't have a lasting impact on you or you can't have emotion towards them, but it does mean recognizing that nothing is permanent and accepting it with peace. "Bad" or selfish attachments are people you latch onto as part of you. Bad attachment is making it about you: you have to have this person or you will die, you have to have their love or support or whatever and you're unwilling to compromise. When they leave, you can't except it because you believe both you, your self, them, and their self are permanent, and it causes you to lash out to protect your self. According to Buddha, this is the cause of all aggression, and that is why selfish attachment is to be avoided as much as possible.

Buddhism and the Jedi

I started with Buddhism because, in my opinion, the Jedi religion has its foundations in Buddhism. If you don't understand Buddhism, you can't understand the Jedi, and I think that's why many people believe that Jedi philosophy doesn't make sense. Cause lowkey, from a Judeo-Christian standpoint, it doesn't. But if we start with Buddhism and work from there, the understanding might come better.

Let's take a look at the pillars of the Eightfold Path again:

Wisdom (Understanding, no delusion)

Right Understanding (accepting Buddhist teachings)

Right Resolve (committing to action)

Morality (Benevolence, no anger)

Right Speech (telling the truth)

Right Action (avoiding wrong behavior)

Right Livelihood (not having an occupation that does harm)

Meditation (Non-attachment, no greed)

Right Effort (controlling one's mind)

Right Mindfulness (being present in the moment)

Right Meditation (mental calm)

Now compare it with this version of the Jedi Mantra:

"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force"

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Some of these are not relevant right now, since they come from Daoism or Christianity (and also, we'll come back to the other version in a minute). But you can already see the parallels between Buddhism and the Jedi, especially in the Meditation pillar. Right Meditation and Right Mindfulness correspond directly to "There is no emotion, there is peace" and "There is no passion, there is serenity." Also, Right Understanding and Right Resolve feel very "There is no ignorance, there is knowledge" to me. This means that "There is no emotion" does not mean there is no emotion ever, it simply means controlling your gut reaction and staying calm. Reacting with gut emotions sometimes means that people around you will suffer, especially when your gut emotions are anger and hurt. Remember, we're not about suffering in this house, so there will be no gut reactions here when we can help it.

Also, the idea of attachments comes straight from Buddhism. In Buddhism, delusion leads to anger and greed, which leads to further suffering, and we delude ourselves by being selfish (remember, in this sense selfish is thinking our self is permanent, not necessarily being a dickwad). Now, I really hope this sounds familiar, because this is "fear leads to anger leads to hate leads to suffering" in practically the same words. Here, delusion of the self and fear of losing it are one in the same, and the Jedi fight this by not being attached to one state of themself, and everything that entails. Ultimately, the Jedi exist to alleviate suffering throughout the galaxy. That is their literal job description and what they sign up for when they become Knights. In Buddhist philosophy, having selfish attachments is directly counter to this idea, as we see in Anakin.

Because this definition comes directly from Buddhism, this does not mean that Jedi cannot make connections. In fact, Buddhism says we are all connected (just like with the Force! Wow it's almost like that was planned), and we should have compassion for everyone. The Jedi also say this, plain and simple, in broad daylight.

(Source: @ gffa, David Thibault on Pinterest)

The best example of a Buddhist Jedi is Yoda, who was based off of literal Buddhist monks and has non-attached compassion down to a science.

So, in summary, we got the Buddhist ideas of attachment, compassion, and selfishness for the Jedi. What about everything else?

Daoism

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Next up is Daoism/Taoism! This one is possibly the least obvious if you don't have familiarity with Eastern religions and philosophies (or maybe it is for everyone else, but I was kind of surprised to see Daoism and how well it applies to SW/the Jedi). Let's get into it

What is Daoism/Taoism?

**Same disclaimer for Daoism that I had for Buddhism! Except I know even less about Daoism than I do about Buddhism. Again, if you have more questions, I recommend doing outside research because I'm about to tell you just about everything I know on Daoism here**

First things first, how do you spell it? Daoism or Taoism?

There's no actual difference between them. The sound at the beginning of the word doesn't really exist in English, but it's somewhere between D and T, and translators often switch between the two. I use D because I just like the way Daoism sounds better than Taoism, but that's literally such a dumb reason. Call it whichever, people will understand you! There's gonna be a lot of those in this, since Chinese to English translation is tricky on the best of days and translating Daoism is... well, we'll get to it

Lau Tzu, from source

Daoism is one of the six great philosophical schools of China. It emerged around 3 century CE when Lao Tzu wrote the Dao De Jing (also known as the Tao Te Ching. To keep my spelling of D/T consistent, I'll be using the Dao De Jing spelling). The story goes that he was a great sage of his time, and he was stopped by Chinese border patrol one day. When the agents recognized who he was, they begged him for advice and pearls of wisdom. So, he gave it to them, and someone (possibly Lao Tzu, possibly one of the agents) wrote it down. This would be awesome and hilarious, because the Dao De Jing is a short book, but it has 80+ poems/maxims/stories in it, which means mans was there for way longer than the border patrol probably wanted him there

It's also possible that Lao Tzu doesn't exist and the Dao De Jing was actually written by multiple people buuuuut the other explanation is more fun so let's go with that

Dao De Jing roughly translates to "The Book of Virtue and Wisdom." In it are a lot of verses that explain the Daoist school of thought. They can be translated in many ways, but the version I read was in poetry. Here are a few excerpts that I think explain the Daoist religion the best:

"The way you can go isn’t the real way. The name you can say isn’t the real name. Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things. So the unwanting soul sees what’s hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants. Two things, one origin, but different in name, whose identity is mystery. Mystery of all mysteries! The door to the hidden."

Source: "1, Taoing" Tao Te Ching, trans. Ursula K. Le Guin

"Not praising the praiseworthy keeps people uncompetitive. Not prizing rare treasures keeps people from stealing. Not looking at the desirable keeps the mind quiet. So the wise soul governing people would empty their minds, fill their bellies, weaken their wishes, strengthen their bones, keep people unknowing, unwanting, keep the ones who do know from doing anything. When you do not-doing, nothing’s out of order."

Source: "3, Hushing." Tao Te Ching, Ursula K. Le Guin

"Be completely empty. Be perfectly serene. The ten thousand things arise together; in their arising is their return. Now they flower, and flowering sink homeward, returning to the root."

Source: "10, Returning to the Root." Tao Te Ching, Ursula K. Le Guin

Now if you think that these are confusing and difficult to parse, you'd be correct. It's not just cause they're written as poems and not just cause they're translations between two difficult languages to translate; the Dao De Jing is intentionally written to be difficult to understand. You have to work to understand the Dao (the Way), and that's how Lao Tzu intended it. But part of the work in understanding the Dao is part of the experience of the religion. In other words, putting the work to try and understand the Dao is already halfway there!

Because I'm nice and because I want some baseline understandings for this discussion, I'll go ahead and give you broadly accepted interpretations of and concepts from the Dao De Jing.

The goal is to be unified with everything around you. All things cycle into each other and influence each other, and the goal of the Way is to be one with the natural flow of the universe

There is a common delusion that things are separate from each other. In Daoism, this is false. Nothing is truly separated- all things flow into each other and become each other in time (This is where yin and yang come from)

Adding off of that last point, identifying things too much will result in privileging one over the other. In Daoism, humans operate too much in absolute terms- what is good, what is bad, why each is each, and how to keep the good without having the bad. But all things must cycle into each other (dirt to flowers to dirt, sun to moon to sun, winter to summer to winter, etc), otherwise there is no balance, and no Way to follow

To follow the Way, you have to practice wu wei, or non-doing. In its absolute simplest terms, non-doing is going with the flow, but in a very specific way. Non-doing requires acting organically and adapting as specific opportunities arise. Having an end goal is contrary to the Way. Instead, the philosophy of wu wei says that what you need/want will come to you naturally if you follow the flow of nature

Expect things in unexpected places (but not... like... expecting? Cause you gotta Go With The Flow y'know? Anyways)

Pacifism to the Max

You must follow the Way completely and fully. Half-assing the Dao will result in being generally unhappy since you're not actively pursuing your goals either outside the Way or inside the Way. So it's just like lose-lose no matter what

There's like... more. But that's enough to delve into the Jedi methinks so let's do it.

Daoism and the Jedi (and Star Wars overall)

Jedi are notorious for defying expectations. A crotchety old frog is the most powerful Jedi in the Order. The most devout Jedi Padawan ends up being the person who tried to blow up their Temple. The person who will become The Villain of All Time is regarded as being well on his way to being one of the Best Jedi in the Order, if not already there. The list goes on. The same crotchety old frog says everything as cryptically as possible to force his students to do the work to understand what he's saying (a mannerism that many Jedi copy, if they're not as cryptic as Yoda). The Jedi are not pacifists, per se, but they go out of their way to be non-violent as often as possible (this overlaps with the Buddhist idea of attachments and their relation to violence). The Jedi also try to treat within their Order the same, and hierarchy is pretty loose.* Also, the Force is the Way. It literally flows through everything, it doesn't get more obvious than that. Also, "do or do not, there is no try," anyone?

*This point is contentious, I know, but looking canon it's true. The Jedi do not privilege one Jedi over another- councilor members seem to be treated roughly the same inside the Order as every other Knight or Master. The difference between Knight and Master is nebulous at best and the only difference between the two seems to be raising a Padawan. But at what point beyond that does a Knight become a Master? Why are Knights also called Masters and vice versa? Padawans and younglings are a different story, but certainly within ranks there is little differentiation.

But more than that, the world that the Jedi operate in is very Daoist. The Light and Dark side of the Force come from yin and yang (though, due to Buddhist and Christian influences, yin isn't quite the Dark side and yang isn't quite the Light, but the idea definitely came from Daoism). Light and dark people have bits of both in them, as Clone Wars goes out of its way to demonstrate over and over again. In The Last Jedi, Luke outright states that the Force is what ties together the Light and the Dark, and that they cycle into each other. This is reinforced over and over again. In Mortis,

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On Ahch-To,

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And just about every time anyone says where there is great light there is also great darkness, plus a lot in Legends content because Legends writers apparently love playing with this.

Also, time in Daoism (and generally in Eastern religions/philosophies) is cyclical. In the West, we view time as cyclical- one thing happened back then and it won't ever happen the same way again. But in Daoism, the same events happen over and over again in a continual cycle, just as they do in nature. Star Wars operates in the exact same way. The Republic rises, then the Empire, then the Republic, then the First Order, and on and on. Characters rise and fall with their times, and at times, it seems like the same story is doomed to play out over and over again. Where exists bright light, also exists deep night; every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Alright, back to the Jedi Mantra. Now that we're in Daoism, let's look at the weird one:

"Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force."

Source

Many interpretations of this mantra have focused on the idea that both exist, and I personally agree with that interpretation, especially in the context of Daoism. The key with Daoism is that Daoists aren't trying to change the world, like Christians or Buddhists. They're simply trying to be one with the universe, as is the natural state of things. They do not deny the chaos, but harmonize with it instead. They do not deny death, they simply follow the Way/Dao/Force to death when it's time. The key to Daoism is holding contradictions together and finding the way between them like water in a stream, instead of choosing one side over another. Also, tell me this doesn't read like the Dao De Jing? You can't because it does.

(Side note: the holding contradictions together thing is also the explanation behind Obi-Wan's iconic line "Only the Sith deal in absolutes." Sith cannot acknowledge shades of gray or sides that are not their own: for the Sith, there is only their side and everyone else's side, and their side is always right. Jedi are trained to see the white dot in the black swirl and the black dot in the white swirl. Sith can only see the black or the white, nothing in-between. This is also known as obsessive and/or antagonistic thinking.)

The best example of a Daoist Jedi is Qui-Gon Jinn, aka Mr. "Let's-Bet-On-Some-Kid-Who's-Never-Won-A-Podrace-In-His-Life" whose middle name is Maverick. Need I say more?

So, in summary, we got the "weird" and confusing parts of the Jedi religion from Daoism (though I hope I cleared some of them up! But they are meant to be confusing lmao)

Christianity

Source

"But Tori," you protest, "If the Jedi are supposed to be following the Way and the Way goes between what's good and bad, why are Jedi constantly the Good Guys who do Good Things instead of being neutral monks on their mountain?"

Well my friend, let me introduce you to a little thing called Christianity.

Now, in my opinion, the Jedi are possibly least inspired by Christianity. By in large, most of their themes and Main Religious Points can be found in either Buddhism or Daoism. But so far, all we have for motivation of why the Jedi do good things is compassion and to alleviate suffering. How do they know how to do that? The Jedi say they do it by following the Force, but how do they do it by following the Daoist Force, which says they have to be neutral as possible and one with nature?

Let's pivot to Christianity (with no disclaimer for this one because I was raised Baptist and Catholic (long story) and I actually know quite a bit about Christianity).

What is Christianity?

Christianity grew from followers of Judaism right around 0 CE. Though the Torah (the primary Jewish religious text) is official canon in Christianity, Christians follow God and Humanity's savior, the Son of God, Jesus. When Jesus was alive, He preached gospel to His followers over the course of a few years. Though there are many things that make up Christian theology, Jesus's teachings are often first, foremost, and the foundation of that theology. These were written down in the Bible in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, and further expanded into the New Testament of the Bible (the primary Christian religious text).

Jesus was real simple. He preached that there is a Good and a Bad, and both of those things are determined by the creator of the universe, God. A true Christian will do Good things, like feed the poor and respect your fellow man. If you do Bad things, that's okay! You just have to confess and repent, and you will be forgiven by God. Other Christians also must forgive you, because that is one of the Good things that All Christians Must Do. If you refuse to repent, you go to Hell when you die. If you believe in and worship God, follow all the rules, and do all the Good things, God will reward you in the afterlife by sending you to the Kingdom of Heaven, where there is No Bad Ever.

Tl;dr: don't be a dickwad and say thanks to God every once and a while and you're good homie.

Therefore, Christianity is based around three pillars: Faith, Love, and Hope. Have faith in your God to know what to love and what to do, and hope for a better tomorrow and afterlife.

Everything else is kind of extra and we don't really need it here (including the Ten Commandments, since the Jedi don't really follow them), so like... don't get mad at me for summing up Christianity like this please haha

Christianity and the Jedi

I've already alluded to this, but Jedi get their moral compass from belief and faith in the Force to essentially tell them what to do. This is fresh outta Christianity ladies, gents, and enbies; though themes overlap a bit in Daoism, Christianity takes pains to make it clear that its moral compass come from God and Jesus. If you want to read more about this, CS Lewis articulates the argument really well in Mere Christianity.

Now, this bit can be a little tricky to see clearly with the Jedi, since the Force doesn't act like the Christian God. The Christian God is generally fairly active in a Christian's life, especially in the Bible. God will straight up send heavenly messengers or like communicate with people himself in the Bible to tell them what to do, but the Force is more subtle than that. Obviously the Jedi can feel the Force, but they rarely- if ever- know what the Force is trying to tell them. So instead, Jedi seem to use more of a river current approach: where the Force flows is obviously Good, so they try to feel the Force tugging them in that direction and go there. But you can swim against the flow of a river, and sometimes it's super easy to do in still spots. That's okay! As long as you repent and turn around, it's all good.

The practice is obviously Daoist, but the Force as the Ultimate Moral Good is a Christian concept. This is why Jedi are the good guys and why following the Force generally leads to the most narratively rewarding and best outcomes- if they were purely Daoist, they'd spend their days doing things like eating wood and carving cart wheels perfectly right (Daoist stories can get more exciting, but generally Daoist hero stories revolve around mundane things like this to emphasize that the way to live is to be perfectly in tune with the world around you). Instead, Jedi often present themselves as Christian heroes. You know, the ones who follow God and defend their city from evil forces, magically know which food is poisoned, carrying people across a near-impossible to cross river, levitating and making things fly across rooms, and more. Any of this sound familiar?

The Jedi morals themselves are influenced from many places, as we've already seen. But the Dark side vs. the Light side are Western/Christian; it's very reminiscent of heaven vs. hell and the motifs in both mirror that. The Dark side is cold, aggressive, and "bad," and the Light is warm, kind, and "good" (in Daoism, these concepts are flipped). The visuals draw from Western visuals of both.

Also, Jedi are supposed to look like a cross between samurai and Christian monks, and many of the other aesthetic choices for Jedi come from one of those two influences.

Source (1, 2, 3+4)

The Vatican compared with the Jedi Temple in AotC and RotS

Jedi are also literally called Knights. How much more obvious can it get.

Christian Jedi are a little harder to nail down, but if it came down to it, I'd probably place my bets on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan has doing Light Side things down pat, as well as forgiveness and repent. Plus, tell me he didn't sound a bit like God when he was talking to Luke in ANH.

Conclusion

So, if I had to sum up the Jedi, I'd say it like this (Bold is from Buddhism, italics is from Daoism, and bold+italics are from Christianity):

"The Jedi Order is a Force-sensitive religious group dedicated to the alleviation of suffering throughout the galaxy. Though they are mainly trained as peacekeepers, all Jedi are proficient with a lightsaber, and the Order encourages this practice as long as they use their skills to defend.

Due to their Force-sensitivity, Jedi can connect to the living things around them and sense emotions, thoughts, and sometimes memories as though they were their own. Without proper emotional regulation, Jedi can become overwhelmed and pass out or obtain other psychic damage. For this reason, the Jedi practice mindfulness and non-attachment through meditation. From a young age, Jedi are trained to regulate emotional instincts and react mindfully to their surroundings to not overwhelm themselves or others.

The Jedi follow the Will of the Force. Though this can be difficult to interpret, Jedi train their entire lives to recognize the signals of the Force as they are presented to them. The Jedi follow the "Light Side"* of the Force, which puts them in direct opposition to the Sith, who follow the Dark Side. The two have been mortal enemies since time immortal, and will continue to be so as the cycle of light and dark continues to chase itself.

*it's worth noting here that at no point in time is the Force that the Jedi follow referred to as the "light side," it's simply the Force. This implies that the Jedi truly are just following The Way, and the Sith have completely convoluted The Way.

There are two versions of the Jedi Mantra, which outline their philosophies well:

"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force"

"Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force."

The Jedi believe that fear leads to anger, which leads to hate, which leads to suffering. Therefore, Jedi try to conquer fear and selfishness as much as possible, which is how the Jedi principle of non-attachment came about. Though Jedi believe in compassion and love, their duties and Force-sensitivity require them to forgo attachments, or unhealthy and obsessive relationships with others. This is a struggle that many Jedi work through their entire lives. Jedi also believe in non-material possession and contentment in the natural world. Since the natural world and the Force are intertwined with each other, this allows Jedi to listen to the Force better."

Finally, the way the Jedi follow the Force is not the only or "correct" way of following the Force. Just irl as there are no correct cultures or religions, just the ones that align with you, personally, the best, there is no correct way of practicing the Force (though the Sith are generally set up as bad guys in Star Wars, the Dark Side of the Force is corruptive by nature, and Sith are almost always rampaging killing machines, so I think we can make an exception for them). The Force seems to manifest in many different ways, so therefore the religions can too.

I hoped this helped you guys answer any questions you may have about the Jedi! This got so long so if you read to the bottom you're a real trooper. If you still have questions, feel free to rb or shoot me an ask!

#star wars #jedi #jedi order #pro-jedi #meta #star wars meta #sw discussion

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