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candythemew · 4 years

Note

OkLach headcanons?

Now you’re speaking my language! (Oh! And if anyone wants to ask me about headcanons about them with their skekling please send your asks my way! This is just gonna be main canon HC’s)

𝔚𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔢𝔩𝔰𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔱 𝔟𝔲𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤?

✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

First off, when the Skeksis were young still finding the specific role, niche, and place that they fit into as they asserted their authority over Thra, SkekOk and SkekLach absolutely HATED each other. SkekLach saw SkekOk as a pathetic weakling who used his silver tongue and quick wit to charm the gelfling and other skeksis to do his bidding, and to buy into his way of thinking. Convincing people to do things they wouldn’t do normally through flattery and shallow promises. She didn’t like his pompous attitude and held more respect for the beings of Thra who put their thoughts into action like her. Ones who thought tactically, but weren’t afraid to take risks. She didn’t see what anyone saw in him. All she saw was just another one of the Emperor’s lapdogs. Spitting lies and weaving tall tales to uplift himself above the rest.

SkekOk however saw her as a brutish barbarian! Her avarice knowing no bounds as she raged and pillaged all those who stood in her way. Nothing befitting of a Lord of the Crystal. The gelfling worshiped her like a goddess, no doubt like they did the rest of his peers. But he saw the fear in their eyes. If the skeksis were going to rule properly, they must first create a level of relationship and trust between their subjects. Not fear. Although he himself was prone to flights of fancy, he found her ambitions foolish at best, and dangerously compromising to the empire at worst. Be it her insistence on the thrill of a good raid, or trying her hand at taming one of the most fearsome of beasts of Thra; The Arduff. He couldn’t stand it. Her amazonian demeanor made The Scroll-Keeper see her as nothing more than a ruthless brute. But at the same time, there was a tad bit of jealousy there. As many of his peers saw her as incredibly desirable and beautiful. As well as incredibly wealthy… Some had even attempted at winning her hand; only to be quickly shot down and berated by her. If he was being completely honest, he craved the attention that she received. She was always center of attention. At the time, she was the Emperor’s favorite. This jealousy led him to talk poorly of her behind her back. He stayed far from her as he spread rumors about The Collector in hopes to ruin her reputation. Although ironically over time, as they were forced to work with each other and face various trials with one another they developed a mutual trust after proving themselves to one another. And even saving each other’s lives a few times! If either of them were to be told at this point that they were going to eventually fall for each other, they would have laughed straight in your face! What a foolish thought? Why would I love them?! ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

Their relationship went in an order similar to this:

Hatred ➺ Reluctant Respect ➺ Acquaintances ➺ Friends ➺ Mutual feelings ➺ Lovers ➺ Mates. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔩𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔩𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰:

SkekOk tries to give SkekLach little reasons to keep her chin up. He reminds her to take care of herself and gives her little bits of advice to improve her life. Sometimes he’ll ask for her help for small tasks so she has something to do since she dosn’t have the same motivation she used to before her illness took over most aspects of her life.

SkekLach is the reason why SkekOk isn’t a dog person. One word. ARDUFF! SkekLach will intentionally follow SkekOk around his library and mess with his things if she feels like he hasn’t given her enough attention.

SkekOk suffers from narcolepsy, So SkekLach is there for him to make sure he arrives to meetings on time, or carry him to another room if she finds him asleep somewhere.

Insulting each other is a regular occurrence between them. Although neither of them have any ill intent towards each other when they do it. It’s like a game to them! Light hearted banter that calls back to their youth before they fell in love. Hence why SkekLach isn’t hurt when SkekOk says she was “NEVER BEAUTIFUL!” and then affirms is with a “Nevaaah~” if you pay attention to the scene, SkekLach can be seen laughing alongside him, even though she’s the butt of the joke. They’re both genuinely having fun bickering. I also personally like to HC that most Skeksis find simple gestures of affection peculiar and strange. Like everything in a skeksis’s life, gestures of affection are showy and grandiose. But OkLach’s more subtle and slow approach confuses their peers. They can make each other laugh very easily. They know how the other ticks. One of the things that made skekOk fall in love with hre was SkekLach’s ability to make him genuinely laugh his lungs out! His teasing can also cause a similar reaction. SkekOk’s laughs arranging from childish giggling, to incoherent teary eyed laughter! Although not as strong as she used to be, the other skeksis are still wary of SkekLach due to her past reputation. Also because she’s not afraid to give you a disease if you REALLY tick her off. She acts as sort of a bodygaurd or wall for SkekOk when he shoots his mouth off or gets in trouble. Nobody’s going to get him except through her! ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

𝔓𝔥𝔶𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔞𝔩 𝓐𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫:

Intertwining tails is a very very intimate thing in Skeksis culture. It shows that you genuinely care for your friend/partner and that you enjoy their presence. For a human it would be kind of like a really good hug. But sadly, SkekLach lost a part of her tail long ago. So doing this is near impossible for them to do unless they’re sitting right next to each other or laying down beside one another in bed. Instead, they have adapted to holding hands like the Gelfling do. Be it for comfort, taking a walk together, or just to feel close. Heck! They do it so frequently that sometimes they don’t even realize they’re doing it! It’s become somewhat of an involuntary habit for them. When they sleep together, they like to cuddle. SkekLach is the big spoon. Sleeping is hard for her, (I personally HC that she has insomnia) but she sleeps better if she has something to hold on to. Thankfully SkekOk likes being held so this arrangement is perfect. It’s just comforting for both of them.

They don’t “Kiss” often. I think you can imagine why. Pustules leak and it’s NASTY

The Scroll-Keeper sometimes has the habit of resting his head on top of The Collector’s when he’s tired. Neither of them have much hair to preen anymore, but sometimes when they’re alone, in their more intimate moments; skekLach will take off her cowl for skekOk to preen her mane. Her hair has a coarse texture. It’s color mostly grey with small streaks of a faded black. Salt and pepper if you will. It’s a small bit of beauty she still retains even in her disgusting, decrepit state. However, it’s only for his eyes as she’s very self-conscious. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

𝕷𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕸𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖆𝖌𝖊~♪ ♫ ♩

SkekOk and SkekLach are mates. And they have been a mated pair now for the past 400 years. If the Skeksis care to have any sort of marriage/mating ritual, they have done it. You bet your bottom dollar that it was extravagant! A true fairy tale... They can only see each other as life partners and want to make sure that everyone else knows it. Especially SkekLach. Who is known to be dreadfully greedy of her most valuable possessions...

Much like how many birds mate for life, Skeksis do too. Although being a rather (for lack of a better word) promiscuous race, this is rare. If two develop a strong enough bond, they’ll stick together in an attempt to feel whole. Only sticking with said mate for the rest of their lifetime. However long that may be. Their much more steadfast and patient Mystic counterparts also share this trait. (By “their” I just mean the race as a whole. Nobody specific.) Ok and Lach have their own chambers made for themselves. But they also have a shared bedroom that they occasionally sleep in together from time to time.

SkekOk is a hopeless romantic, and SkekLach couldn’t care less when it comes to flowery poetry. But she admires his passion to his interests. Something she lost desire for in her own life. The Scroll-Keeper will occasionally write her poetry and love letters expressing his feelings to her. Sometimes, in return, she will write him something back. Although riddled with intentional grammar mistakes and poor spelling. Sending him into a flustered angry mess as he corrects her. Only to find something even worse written down as he continues. He’ll read these aloud for all to hear. SkekLach likes to see the reactions he’ll have to her writing. What can she say? He makes her laugh. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

𝓢𝔞𝔡 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔠𝔞𝔫𝔬𝔫𝔰 𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔲𝔱: ︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

SkekLach’s death hit SkekOk harder than anyone will ever know. She was a part of him. She was his closest friend, and the love of his life. His mental health suffered immensely from her loss, and he was never truly able to grieve her properly and move on. Instead, over time he developed an unhealthy coping mechanism of talking to himself for hours on end. He pretended that she never left his side. “No gelfling trick could have ever gotten the best of me!” She would boast... Eventually he started to hear her voice in whispers... He could swear he could hear her voice from just beyond the hall... Down the corner in her chambers! Only to find an empty room devoid of anything but dusty old trinkets and bittersweet memories. Other times he would hear the distinct metal clang of her blades against her opponent’s weapons as he would wander the now garthim-filled training rooms. He could hear a younger, much more determined tone! Calculated and precise. Once again to wander in and find nothing but empty training grounds chock full of the dark arthropodan soldiers. But it was the nights that were the hardest. On cold starless nights, laying alone in his decadent yet lonely chambers, he would lie alone for hours on end, eyes closed as he tryed to let the soothing grasp of sleep claim him... In the uttermost difficult moments as he drifted off to sleep, He could swear that he could feel her arms wrapped around his scrawny frame. Tails intertwined as she softly whispered a tired “I love you.” Gently leaning her head on his shoulder, The Scroll-Keeper let out a sigh of relief as he fell sound asleep in the arms of his lover... Only to be greeted with an empty bed as he rose once again the next morning. Truly cementing the fact of how alone and incomplete he truly is. He only wishes for these delusions to stop and yet... He can’t bear to let her go... ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰ Sometimes these hallucinations can get so bad that he’ll fall into manic babbling fits where the voices of not only her, but all sorts of beings from his past will haunt him. After these spasms, he returns to his work or simply passes out due to exhaustion. He apologizes for his random outbursts should someone he cares about see him in this state. If he even remembers they were there at all. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

Remember when I said that skeksis mate for life? Well that grief an animal or human might face hits just as hard to a stone-hearted, cold blooded skeksis as it would to any man. That sorrow that SkekOk faced upon SkekLach’s sudden death caused him immeasurable psychological and emotional damage. As the Skeksis are naturally selfish beings. Besides the support he would receive from his lifelong friend SkekEkt the Ornamentalist, not many were there to comfort him. If The Scroll-Keeper were able to relive one last day with The Collector, even for just a moment. He would do it in a heartbeat. Savoring every second like it was his last day on Thra. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

Although she doesn’t admit it to anyone else, disguising her distaste of herself under a veil of irony and self deprecation, SkekLach has issues with loving herself. She constantly reminisces over “The glory days.” The skeksis are a dying race and she knows it. They can’t fool her. And on that topic, she’s the worst of them on that regard. Due to her hideous appearance and the immense emotional and physical pain she endures everyday, sometimes she wonders if SkekOk even loves her at all. Is he only staying with her because he has to? Out of obligation, or does he just pity her? Does he wish she were like the skeksis she was all those centuries ago? She struggles with this fear more than she’d like to admit.

SkekLach feels extremely insecure about the fact that she can’t intertwine her tail with SkekOk’s due to her traumatic injury that left her with only half of her tail remaining. SkekOk, having a much longer flexible tail will often try to wrap it around her waist if they’re sitting right next to each other. The feeling is bittersweet, but much appreciated. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰ In the main timeline, SkekOk and SkekLach did attempt at having a baby. But since the skeksis are completely infertile in that universe, they yielded no results. They keep a small handmade doll in their shared bedchambers of what could’ve been the skekling that they had wanted so badly. Its not much, but it helped them cope and move on. ✰ ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵✰︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧- - - - -୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ✰

𝔗𝔥𝔞𝔫𝓀 𝔜𝔬𝔲 𝔣𝔬𝔯 ℜ𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤! - ℭ𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔶𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔐𝔢𝔴

#OkLach #SkekOk #SkekLach #the dark crystal: age of resistance #Dark Crystal Headcanon #SkekOk x SkekLach #skeksis #The Dark Crystal #skekok the scroll keeper #SkekLach the Collector

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jinruihokankeikaku · 4 years

Note

hi :D could you do a session analysis of my 6 person session - we have a Prince of Void (P), Knight of Time (D), Heir of Space (P), Rouge of Light (P), Bard of Heart (D), and finally, Witch of Light (D)

I certainly could ^^^^-^^^^ Session Analysis #2!!!!!!!! Here we go…

Player Lineup

Prince of Void

Active Destruction Class; Actual-Introspective Aspect

Knight of Time

Active Defense/Service Class; Actual-Culminative-Conclusive Aspect

Heir of Space

Passive Manipulation Class; Actual-Expansive-Explosive Aspect

Rogue of Light

Passive Appropriation Class; Actual-Associative Aspect

Bard of Heart

Passive Destruction Class; Personal-Introspective Aspect

Witch of Light

Active Manipulation Class; Actual-Associative Aspect

Session Outlook

Space and Time Players present? Yes, so you’re not doomed off the buckle. That’s a start.

Active-Passive Balance: You’ve got a 50/50 split here, which is pretty much ideal. Functions-wise, you’ve got 2 Destroyers, 2 Manipulators, an Appropriator and a Defender, and no Creators or Investigators. More on how this comes into play later.

Aspect Balance: 5 Actual : 1 Personal : 0 Cyclical; and 2 Associative : 1 Introspective : 1 Culminative–Conclusive : 1 Expansive-Explosive. Setting aside the necessary Time and Space Aspects leaves you with 2 Associative to 1 Introspective, and 3 Actual to 1 Personal, with no Cyclical Aspects (Doom, Life, Time, Void) whatever. This doesn’t say a whole lot on the face of it about your session, but it does mean that your player’s powers are going to be concentrated in a particular domain (in this case, the physical / epistemological rather than realms of faith or ideology). Also, you’ve got two Light players and a Void player (who belongs to a Destruction class, and will therefore ghost Light). Information overload and an abundance of not-necessarily-relevant stimuli seems like a real possibility.

Possible Events

Let’s start out with the biggest warning sign – 1/3 of your Team are destroyers, and your only player in a non-Actual Aspect is the Bard, the biggest wildcard there is. Expect a lot of identity crises, and few ways if any to shortcut interpersonal relations, due to the absence of Cyclical and Personal aspects (with the exception of the Bard, a Class better suited to uhh… problematizing… than to problem-solving. With that in mind, here are some…

…notes on individual players…

Starting with our Prince of Void:

The “destroyer of nothingness” will ghost Light at first; they’ll be someone who destroys the Void within themselves and others, desperate to ensure that nothing is kept secret, and desirous of complete knowledge of their Session and their particular role in it. Like any Prince, they’ll be well-intentioned but also a bit self-important, and they’ll likely draw a lot of attention to themselves from the start. They may be deeply uncomfortable in solitude or in situations lacking in stimulation, and consequently attempt to involve themselves in situations that they needn’t necessarily be involved in. Keep an eye on this player, because destroying through the power of the Void (which is often associated with the Furthest Ring and its denizens) is a game-changing ability indeed. In order to wield it with forbearance, and for the good of the Session, rather than for selfish aims, they’ll need to learn to look within themselves without fear, and become comfortable on their own.

Then there’s the Knight of Time:

A Role shared with a canon protagonist, and certainly a powerful one, the Knight will actively defend and serve the Alpha Timeline and the Space player through their skillful use of time travel and the exploitation of closed temporal loops. They’re unlikely to get along with the Prince of Void especially well, and since they both belong to Active classes it’s quite possible that these disagreements might… escalate. However, the Knight will be an invaluable asset to the Heir of Space, who will not necessarily be especially focused or directed early on, and whose survival is crucial to the Session’s success. Their presence in the session means the session might be “short on time” also, so keep that in mind. While the deficit is unlikely to be as pronounced as that of the Beta kids’ session, given the number of additional factors goin on there, it’s still going to be a notable one.

The Heir of Space

Your Space player, as noted above, is likely to be a bit scattered at first, having almost boundless creativity but little interest in following through. They’re unlikely to progress through the game very quickly despite the formidable power within them, and so their relationship with the Knight will be crucially important during the Game’s trials. Once they have completed their quest and realized what they might become, however, they’ll become tremendously powerful, warping space by their very presence, and, at the height of their power, Becoming Space Itself, nigh omnipresent with the ability to teleport virtually anywhere at any time. Their less-than-urgent initial attitude toward the game might frustrate some of the Session’s more Active players, like the Prince and the Witch, and it’ll be important for them to balance their spacious, omnidirectional thinking with directed action towards victory in the Session. They’ll probably get along well with the Bard at first, until the Bard inevitably faces a crisis of Heart and, well, changes things…

The Rogue of Light

One of two Light players in your session, the Rogue is going to be a rather shy player at first, likely looking up to the Witch as almost an authority figure, when it comes to matters of intellect and communication. They’ll likely have a strong friendship, in which the Rogue will be the less assertive figure; indeed, the Rogue might have unexpressed romantic feelings towards the Witch, or maybe look up to them as an older sibling? There are a lot of ways in which this relationship could manifest, but they’re going to be real close; the Rogue will have to step out of the Witch’s shadow eventually. They may also have a tumultuous relationship with the Prince, as both will sort of vacillate between embracing and fearing Light by turns. Because the session will functionally have 3(!) Light players in the beginning, the Rogue will play an important role in the Session due to their duty to rebalancing/redistributing Light, and may play an especially critical role in the Prince’s development from an over-embracing/inverted Light player to a healthy and well-balanced Void player. This could bring them closer together, or pull them apart, depending on the circumstances.

The Bard of Heart

Ah, Bards. Bards, as Calliope states in Act 6, are wildcards, capable of making or breaking a session, and our Bard of Heart is no exception. Bards are avoidant personalities at first, trying to hide from their Aspect by ghosting their opposite. However, while a Prince of Heart would ghost Mind by over-embracing it to the extreme, acting like an especially intense and unhealthy Mind player, the Bard of Heart will just act like a rather… chilled out Mind player, maybe posing as a shy or insecure, somewhat nerdy scholar. Their closest friend at first will likely be the Heir of Space, who will share some of their… spacy, less-than-confident tendencies, but this relationship will face some tribulations when the Bard’s Bardic Crisis inevitably arrives. The Bard will probably get increasingly caught up in inaction and overthinking, before eventually snapping and embracing Heart, becoming an intense personality with self-aggrandizing or self-centered tendencies that may push away the Heir, and perhaps everyone else. When they’ve fully embraced Heart, they’ll induce by their mere presence decay and chaos in the relationships and identities of everyone around them, which will cause plenty of drama that the newly self-aware Bard will be all-too-eager to fuel. In order to maintain a healthy and balanced manifestation of Heart, they’ll have to learn to navigate the chaos rather than merely embracing it whole-Heartedly, perhaps by wielding their newfound strong sense of identity and showmanship as a weapon against the various trials the game throws at them.

And finally, the Witch of Light

Our second Hero of Light is the extremely Active and dynamic Witch class, one who bends the rules of Light and forces Light to change to suit their purposes. With both the Prince and the Rogue in play, and manifesting Light in their own ways, the Witch will have an abundance of fuel for their experimentation with knowledge, awareness, and attention, and they’re going to be a tremendously powerful and influential player in the session. They’re going to be extremely fortunate without even trying, climbing the Echeladder with ease, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they wind up being the first player in the Session to Ascend to the God Tiers. Witches tend to be fearless and have an easy confidence about them, and their powers will be among the flashiest in a Session – in the case of a Witch of Light, this might be very literally the case, with the Witch creating luminescent and distracting displays and perhaps even wielding lasers as a weapon. Their challenge will be to allow their fellow Light player some space to work with their Aspect as well, as the Session won’t do well to have so much of its vast store of Light concentrated in the hands of one player. They should remember that just because they can command everyone’s attention, and access stores of knowledge that other players might not, doesn’t mean that they should – they’ll have to learn that the Rogue has as much to teach them as they have to teach the Rogue.

Some Closing Notes

Your Session’s outlook isn’t terrible, but there is a real imbalance of the Aspect wheel at play here – taking into account the Prince’s ghosting behavior and the Bard’s inevitable crisis, your Heir (the most crucial player to the Session’s success!) will be alone on their side of the Aspect wheel. The Knight and the Heir will have to stick together and play the role of co-leaders, avoiding the drama and chaos that the Bard and the Witch are likely to produce. Whatever the case, this Session is sure to be dynamic and far from boring – godspeed!!

~ P L U R ~

#session analysis #fansession #Homestuck #Classpect #Bard of Heart #Witch of Light #Rogue of Light #Prince of Void #Heir of Space #Knight of Time #ask #pinkietoee

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xhxhxhx · 4 years

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During the course of the ‘Quit India’ campaign, the authorities imprisoned 66,000 people. Another 2,500 were shot dead. That meant that during August and September 1942, forces under British control killed more civilians in India than Germans in the Western Desert. In the UK, reports of this severe reaction worried Labour and Liberal MPs. With Churchill absent in Moscow, Attlee chaired the War Cabinets that approved the plans for the movement’s suppression. Cripps and Attlee protested against the use of whipping, but in the end accepted, as Bevin put it, that ‘once the fight is joined it is no use looking back’.

Churchill, on his return, insisted to his colleagues that the Indian National Congress had failed to rally the ‘masses’ to its cause. When he spoke about events in India to the Commons on 10 September, he called it an unrepresentative ‘revolutionary movement’ that had perpetrated ‘revolting atrocities’ and which had probably been aided by Japanese fifth columnists. Thankfully, he noted, the ‘martial races’ had not been influenced, and there were plenty of ‘white soldiers’ now in India who would keep down any trouble.

This sort of rhetoric caused a lot of offence in India and America. At Westminster, it got cheers from a few Conservative diehards, but upset a lot of moderate MPs on both sides of the House. At the same time as condemning Congress, however, Churchill restated the Cripps offer of post-war independence. If, as that suggested, he recognized that concessions given could not be withdrawn, it helps to explain his increasingly aggressive tone when it came to India.

‘Quit India’ evoked the clearest expression of Churchill’s prejudices: ‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.’ For all his misplaced faith in the ‘martial races’, he never really gave the Indian army the credit it deserved for coming back from the debacle of 1942. From this point on, mention of India in Cabinet was guaranteed to bring forth a tirade. He became even more incensed than before about India’s accumulation of sterling balances: ‘Are we to incur hundreds of millions of debt for defending India in order to be kicked out by the Indians afterwards?’ Leo Amery, secretary of state for India, could never quite get him to understand that since India paid for its defence within its borders, the rising balances showed not Indian greed but rather just how much it was contributing to the imperial war effort.

On occasion, Churchill seemed to accept that the Raj was doomed. At other times – like other British statesmen – he held out hope of holding on, perhaps as the federal force keeping the balance between Hindu and Muslim polities and the Princely States. It was hard to tell blustering intransigence from the hope that it could all just be put off until after the war. With Linlithgow due to retire, in autumn 1942 the search began for a new viceroy. According to Brendan Bracken, Churchill wanted a ‘ “tidy administration” in India and not to be bothered’. To ministers, he insisted that the British should not ‘chatter ourselves out’.

For the young Indian students who spearheaded the ‘Quit India’ movement, it had been a heroic battle for liberty. The British public, however, tended to see Indian freedom fighters as people who wanted to aid the enemy. At the start of August, the government leaked Congress’s plans for a civil disobedience campaign, ensuring that it seemed like a bit of calculated treachery. As Home Intelligence reported:

“Hostility to Gandhi – who is variously described as ‘India’s Quisling No.1’, ‘the supreme blackguard of the British Empire’ and ‘a thorough twister’ – seems to be quite widespread; it ranges from ‘dislike’ to assertions that ‘he ought to be shot or strung up’ . . . The minority who question the Government’s action do so on the ground that Home Rule for India is long overdue, and that if India were ‘allowed to rule herself, there would be an overnight transformation in India’s disloyalty to the British crown’.”

The popular view of Gandhi did not improve when, in February 1943, he went on a twenty-one-day hunger strike to protest against the Indian government’s failure to accept responsibility for the violence that had accompanied ‘Quit India’. Hoping to force moderate Indian politicians to take a tougher nationalist line, Gandhi fasted ‘to capacity’ – only taking what fluid and sugared fruit juice he needed to survive – rather than to death. By this point, fasting was deeply embedded as part of Gandhi’s political and spiritual practice, serving as a means for him both to demonstrate the self-control he enjoined on others and to embody the sufferings of his fellow Indians. On this occasion, unusually, it was covered in some detail by the British press. The colonial authorities not only monitored Gandhi’s condition closely, but also carefully released to journalists details of his plush prison accommodation in the Aga Khan Palace and the nature of his limited nutritional intake. As a result, rather than depicting Gandhi as a suffering mystic, or attempting to understand the appeal he was trying to make to his followers, most British newspapers – with the significant exception of the more sympathetic Daily Herald – portrayed him sceptically, as a politician performing austerity in luxurious surroundings in an attempt to undermine the war effort. As the Daily Mail proclaimed: ‘The nation which refused to be intimidated by HITLER, MUSSOLINI and TOJO was never likely to surrender to GANDHI. The days of appeasement are over . . . the dark days of struggle for existence have shown us who are our true friends and who the false.’

Daniel Todman, Britain’s War: A New World, 1942-1947 (Oxford, 2020), 229-31.

#quotes #yikes etc

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polar-stars · 4 years

Note

👹🍅💥🏀 ⭐🍏 🐉 💧🐟🍇 🔮🌸🌷 ❤️ 🧡💚💗 for chieko Mika yasu shigeo kazuo please ;)

I’ve decided to answer these in multiple parts....I hope thats alright with you ;v;

This one will feature Chieko and next on will be Mika and so on...

But thanks for the ask ^^ The questions are really fun to answer

Chieko

👹 How does you OC act around different people and how does their personality change to match the environment they’re in? How do they act with: friends, family, strangers, children or their lover(s)?

Chieko’s behaviour mainly depends on whether she’s talking to someone her age or an adult. Though the closeness to whoever she’s talking is also a large factor.

She’s very polite and well-behaved when talking to adults. If it’s authority-figures or people she admires, she’s very cautious with her words and tends to be a bit shyer. If she’s a bit more closer to them (Satoshi, Daigo, Shoji), she’s a bit more open and more comfortable to vent and rant though.

With people her age, she’s usually more or less polite with strangers, but if you rub her off the wrong way she might become more snarky quickly. Around her friends, she’s definitely more than comfortable to rant and whine about how frustrating everything is. She’s definitely grouchier and quicker to nag, but at the same time she’s also more cheery (if she does end up in a good mood) and less stiff. She’s the same around her family and also the Ibusakis.

🍅 How easily is your OC embarassed? What subjects make them flush and why? What event has made your OC the most embarassed they’ve ever been?

It’s rather easy to make Chieko fluster. She’s not much used to praise and compliments, so that alone can make her blush. It only gets worse if it comes from anyone she holds admiration for. Given that she’s also pretty innocent in that regard, anything sexual will certainly turn her into a tomato as well.

Then there’s also the feeling of being out of place. Chieko does have some insecurities about her looks and thinks of herself as insanely plain. When she’s put into a pretty dress and sent to a fancy party, at times (not always but sometimes) she tends to feel small and stupid being surrounded by girls that she thinks are just so much interesting than her.

💥 Are there any emotions your OC doesn’t know how to deal with, doesn’t understand or hates having to feel? Any reason behind this?

Chieko is certainly conflicted about the attraction she harbors for Shigeo Eizan. She’s pretty confused about how she’s perfectly aware about how excellently he lies and how cruel he is, yet still she can’t help but to feel drawn to him despite the NUMEROUS warning-sings. She’s greatly inexperienced with love and lust to begin with honestly. She never had much of a Love 101 course so to speak, meaning she never really had any innocent teenage-flirting with a nice, uncomplicated kind-off guy but rather gets thrown right into the advanced course.

Another thing she’s honestly rather unfamiliar with is true, deep grief but most of the kids honestly are.

🏀 Does your OC have any skills that people wouldn’t expect them to have? Do they have a hobby or pass time that others would consider strange or weird? How did they learn this particular skill or pick up this hobby?

She actually knows archery. It was taught to her by Yuki’s father who’s just simply very enthusiastic about bows and arrows and wanted to show it to his grandchildren very badly. Chieko’s not perfect at it and she has less and less time to practice it when she grows up, but its still something not many would expect.

She also knows how to play violin, which is also something not all too many know. She just wanted to learn it as child to impress kids at her school and because she liked the instrument honestly.

⭐ Does your OC like to sleep alone or do they enjoy sharing their bed? Have they been to any sleepovers? Have they ever been camping? What did they think of the experiences if so?

When they were very young, Yasu and Chieko at times did sleep in the same bed. It was always rather fun for both of them, as they could tell each other stories till deep in the night and such. She also, to this day, at times has to share a bed with her little brother. Sleeping with Takahiro can be a bit more annoying, because Takahiro certainly loves to poke and tease his big sister a lot and falls asleep very hardly. However, once he is actually asleep, Chieko can’t really deny that another presence in bed is in one or the other way comforting. She won’t think of it as a great necessity though, until she actually shares the bed with a romantically loved one. Because then she’ll grow very fond of it.

🍏 When your OC says “I had a bad day” what does that tend to mean? Is it really as bad as they’re saying or are they being a bit dramatic?

Chieko has a little knack for overacting a bit and she can certainly be a bit overdramatic here and there. Her saying „I had a bad day“ can very easily just be a string of just plainly annoying events that frustrated her enough to be grouchy for the entire day afterwards.

🐉 How religious is your OC? Do they pray to any god(s) or do they not believe in that kind of stuff? What is their view of religion in general? Where do they believe people go when they die? If your OC is not religious why not and what do they believe in otherwise?

Chieko likes to say she’s an agnostic atheist. Personally she does not believe in any deity. However, she’s also one to pronounce that there’s no way of her safely knowing that there’s no deity or such. She just thinks that the proving of wether god/an afterlife exists or not is outside of mankind’s capabilities.

Despite not being religious herself, she does think of religion as immensely interesting. Chieko’s a history-nerd in the end and the impact religion had on humanity all around the world is massive. And that’s just something she finds intriguing to analyze.

💧 What is something from your OC’s past they’re the most ashamed of and why? What is something they’re really proud of? And lastly what is something in their past that could make them shake with dread?

There was a time in which Chieko, desperate to make female friends, would try to make herself out to be more exciting. She’d occasionally make untrue additions to stories she’d tell in an attempt to make them more thrilling or funnier. It’s something she has resigned off from long ago and she’s cringing whenever she thinks back to it.

What she‘s, so far, most proudest over is getting invited to the inauguration party of Totsuki‘s new library wing. She got said invitation thanks to various teacher‘s recommendations as they named her as an excellent example of intellect on Totsuki.

🐟 What was your OC like as a baby? What were they like as a child? A teenager? An adult? How do you think they’ll develop ten years into their future? Twenty years? Will they live to old age?

Baby!Chieko cried quite a lot and mind you, she was fairly loud. Her parents always had a pacifier somewhere near because of it. Baby!Chieko was also fairly clingy to her father and would sometimes start to cry whenever he set her down.

She remained a crybaby throughout childhood and would begin crying at any sort of slight misfortune. As a young child, Chieko was immensely shy and soft-spoken and she was practically famous for hiding behind her father’s legs at all times. At the same time, she showed a lot of intelligence early on and began reading and such at an early age while also always having a lot of enthusiasm when her father taught her something new.

As a teenager, Chieko ultimately toughened up a lot more, mainly thanks to Totsuki’s rough environment and the fact that she had to fight repeated battles over the rights to her room. She’s not as easily brought to tears as she was a child anymore and she also became more snarky throughout the years. At the same time, she of course kept on expanding her knowledge in a wide array of fields and grew into a little genius. She’s capable of more than people give her credit for, but sadly barely any of the people close to her have noticed that she grew out of her former crybaby-self.

Once she’s an adult, Chieko will have become a lot more confident. Both in her talents and also her looks actually. She’ll grow into someone very assertive. Career-Wise, she won’t become a chef that opens restaurants and stuff. She’ll probably keep on operating in the landscape of culinary, yes but in a different field than restaurant-owner. By the way, but once she’ll be a mother she’ll actually be much of a worrywart as her father was.

🍇 Does your OC have any bad habits? Does your OC have any addictions like smoking or drinking? How did they fall into these habits and why?

Chieko tends to overwork herself. Sometimes she just forgets to take breaks and then her mother finds her having fallen asleep on her books while studying for exams.

She only drinks on Polar Star Parties. She’s a lightweight though and does not really know her limit all too well. In Polar Star she has Yasu there to watch over her and also generally trustable people, but her drinking around strangers could possibly be more problematic.

🔮What does your OC think is their best trait. What is actually their best trait? What about their flaws? Are they one to admit these flaws or do they like to pretend they’re perfect?

Chieko herself would definitely name her intelligence as her best trait, but I’d say her best trait would be a combination of her hidden fighting spirit and a sense for justice.

I think a flaw of her’s is that she does barely every allow herself to just let intuition take over out of worry to escalate a situation more than it already has. She makes her moves much more slowly due to overthinking and its also what mainly keeps her inner fighter and bravery hidden from most of the world.

🌸 What’s a sentence that would make your OC’s day better? One that would make them laugh? One that would make their day worse? Why? What words would you have to say to them to completely ruin their day?

A sentence that would make her day better would be „I brought you green tea.“ She just greatly cherishes small gestures of kindness. It might not be much for the person who made her the tea, but it really makes her feel warm and fuzzy and like she matters to someone.

Chieko is super easily peeved, so there’s honestly many things one could say to get her into a bad mood. One drowner is definitely when her dormmates confess they broke one of her things again.

🌷 How much effort does your OC put into their looks? Do they care much about how they’re dressed or what their hair looks like or are they not bothered? Could they be considered a snob or a slob?

Chieko mainly puts effort in styling her hair and making sure her bun looks the way she wants it to look. She also takes pretty good care of her skin actually.

On a normal day however, she wouldn’t be bothered to wear make-up or such at this point in her life. She thinks no one would notice anyway. Her casual wear is also mainly about being decent and proper in her eyes; wether or not it’s fashionable or not is second priority honestly.

For some formal event, she’d put effort in dressing neatly and finding a nice (but still proper) dress to put on. However often her efforts just backfire, as she ends up thinking how silly she is spending so much time on make-up and dress when she’s really just a shadow on such a formal event.

❤️ What inspired you to make this OC? How long have you had them? How have they changed in the time you’ve been developing them?

Chieko was the first fanchild ever created and I’ve had her since April or so 2016…I was just really excited about MarYu and wanted to try creating a fanchild for them. Because my OTP needed a kid ahshd.

Chieko honestly hasn’t changed all too much personality-wise, although some of her more minor quirks and such changed from what I initially had in mind. What mainly changed about her is her story within SnKimiko.

🧡 What traits of your own do you see in this OC? Are they a little bit self-inserty? Don’t be shy, we all put parts of ourselves into the creations we love!

Chieko comes closest to a self-insert of my Fanchilds. Thing is, that I also relate greatly to Zenji Marui to begin with, so what can you do?

Chieko and I do have quite some things in common and also share a great deal of likes and dislikes.

But in the end there’s still things about her that differ from me. Mainly the fact that Chieko does have an actual spine, while I’m a complete doormat. Her story about wanting to prove herself to a world that greatly underestimates her because of her looks and former crybaby persona is also something that I do not highly relate to. I’ve been underestimate here and there yes, but it’s not really a major theme in my life so to speak.

💚 Are you writing anything with this OC or planning on writing anything for them? Do you rp with them or are they just for fun to mess around with?

I have….quite a few ideas for ShigeChi lately. Honestly I always have ideas for ShigeChi. I love them.

💗 Ramble a bit about this character!

Funfact, but the reason why I associate Chieko mainly with the color Blue is because Yuki & Zenji mainly wear blue in the colored version of the manga. Zenji’s polo shirt, which is colored orange in the anime-version, is actually blue in the manga while Yuki is rather often spotted wearing blue as well.

So blue became not only Chieko’s favorite color but also the color I mainly associate her with. (It’s also my favorite color, yah)

Another fun fact, but choosing a ship for Chieko was so chaotic. At first, I couldn’t really see her with anyone. Chieko is my precious baby and I needed everything to be perfect for her and out of the existing cast back then I just couldn’t really picture a very exciting romantic relationship for her with any of them. Later on I did eventually consider a few options…options that piled up more and more. There was a time where she had the most end-game-options to pick from. However, none of the options really did the ultimate „click“ on me. Finally I ended up developing Shigeo further and well…..

#Gofer answering to stuffz #Chieko Marui

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 218: Purse Pilferage and Mouse Murder

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan and Deku sparred in an attempt to draw out Deku’s mysterious new power once again, but to no avail. In a brief flashback, the OFA Scooby Squad (now including Bakugou!) discussed Deku’s recent visions and his multiple quirks. Kacchan pointed out that it was very similar to All for One’s power, which seems to be weighing on Deku’s mind some. That evening at the fanfic dorms, Shouto approached Deku asking if he had been hiding a second quirk. Deku assured him that the new quirk surprised him as much as everyone else, and fibbed that it was probably derived from his original quirk. Meanwhile the U.A. faculty accepted Shinsou into the hero course, and Aizawa acted all weird and cagey about someone from his past named “Shirakumo.” Later, Monoma met with Aizawa, Mirio, Deku, and Eri at the teachers’ dorms and unsuccessfully attempted to copy Eri’s quirk. Eri apologized for being so troublesome, and the others assured her that she wasn’t and Deku told her that even seemingly dangerous quirks can be used for good. It wasn’t lost on him that this applied to his own powers as well, and he resolved to keep working to master OFA.

Today on BnHA: Early one December morn, the kids of 1-A gather in their common room to watch some TV while they wait to hear if Bakugou and Todoroki passed their provisional license retest. The news is reporting on a company called Detnerat which has recently entered the hero equipment business. Their CEO is some Joker-looking dude who’s apparently a big fan of AFO’s old nemesis Destro of Meta Liberation Army fame. Destro’s book has recently been republished and is making the discussion rounds. DetCEO discusses it with his cute lil mouse subordinate Miyashita, but Miyashita isn’t really a fan. This proves unfortunate for Miyashita, as DetCEO is all “that’s too bad, guess I’m just gonna have to snap your neck then.” Like, for real though. Anyway so then DetCEO heads to a secret meeting of like-minded individuals who are apparently Destro’s descendants and are seeking to make his goals a reality. We then segue to a group of purse-snatchers led by someone who I really thought was Shirakumo for a hot minute, ngl. He’s not, though. Anyway so they’re wreaking some havoc and stealing people’s shit -- that is, until two good boys who just earned their provisional licenses after three months of hard work show up to spoil their fun.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 225, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

HOLY SHIT

BABY WE GOT OURSELVES SOME MOTHERFUCKING SNOW IN THE FANFIC DORMS!!!

holy shit. and it’s the weekend! ARE WE GONNA HAVE SOME ANTICSSSS YES PLEASE I REALLY NEED THIS SO BAD RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE NO IDEA

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

KIRISHIMA WHY ARE YOU TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF

I hope they get a ton! I WANT SNOWBALL FIGHTS AND SNOW FORTS AND TODOROKI TO LET IT GOOOOOO LET IT GOOOOOOO

ahh but apparently he and Bakugou are away right now

wow they even got that class on Sundays now, huh

also, who did Sero borrow the tankoubon from? because more likely than not it was Bakugou since I can’t even picture Shouto reading manga (unless he borrowed some volumes from Deku, maybe). so that means Bakugou is (a) a big ol’ manga-reading nerd who brought his manga to school with him, and (b) sharing with friends. both of which make me so, so happy

(ETA: Viz translated this as “I want to borrow the next volume of this manga from Todoroki,” but as far as I can tell, in the RAW version he doesn’t specify who he borrowed it from. I think Caleb Cook just doesn’t think Bakugou is capable of sharing. give him some credit, Caleb Cook.)

Deku says they should be back around six, and Iida says it’s apparently the last day of their provisional class!

OHMYGOSH. hold up. so that means that their re-test is in like a week, no? holy shit. oh my god I’m so hypppppped ahhhhhh

SDLFKHASLDFKJLK HOLY SHIT

IT’S TODAY!?!??

YOU CAN DO IT KIDS I BELIEVE IN YOU. YOU GOT THIS

KACCHAN ARE YOU READY TO OFFICIALLY BECOME KACCHAN THE HERO

(ETA: maybe we’ll actually get Kacchan’s hero name before I grow old. maybe.)

SDFKASLDHK AND LOOK AT THIS SETUP!? AHHHHHH PLEASE DON’T CUT AWAY FROM THIS. OH MY GOD

but snow antics though. oh my god I’m so torn lsdkjlk

anyways of fucking course we cut away, and I don’t really mind because I love cozy 1-A snow day dorm antics also. plus everyone is gossiping about Todo and Baku, and Satou is baking a cake like the Princess Peach he is

Kami is playfully lamenting the fact that he’s about to lose the one leg-up he had on those two, and flipping on the news

oh shit are we gonna get some Plot

I guess so. what is this

Detnerat?? is that a portmanteau of something? an acronym? or another Star Wars reference I failed to pick up on??

(ETA: yeah so it’s the word “talented” spelled backwards. except with an r instead of an l.)

so the news is showing some people with mutant quirks, including a four-armed lady, a jello child, and a walrus with a bowler hat

and the narration is talking about how people like this used to be a minority but now “their era arrived”

interesting. I guess there’s pretty much no such thing as “one size fits all” anymore these days huh. so does that mean there’s been a shift back to custom-made tailored items?

this pointy nose guy is extremely theatrical

calm down buddy

so he says his company has come all this way while building products that meet the needs of each of their customers individually

this is cool and all but I’m trying to figure out why this new arc is opening with an infomercial

I’m expecting things all right, but I think it’s a little too early to say if they’ll be great

and now we’re cutting to this guy’s office, where his employee is concluding his presentation. apparently he was showing his boss the finished commercial

and now they’re discussing the thus-far lukewarm reception to their recent announcement

(ETA: holy shit. famous last words. fuckin’ jinxed it Miyashita.)

are you guys... good guys? bad guys? how is this related to the plot?? a new arc all about stock holdings and market shares. Iida did you write this arc

so pointy nose says that they’ve been doing this on a much larger scale for a long time already, so he’s confident they’ll be successful

oh shit

it only just occurred to me that he used the word “superpowers” instead of quirks

AND LOOK AT THIS SHIT

IT’S THAT BOOK. THE ONE THAT WAS PROBABLY WRITTEN BY DESTRO OMG

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

IT WAS DESTRO. CALLED IT WOOP WOOP

Mishiwhatsa says he read the book too but “it’s a load of crap if you ask me”

he says that what the army was doing was nothing but terrorism at the expense of innocent people, and yet Destro “had the gall” to act like he was in the right

hot damn this guy really was Magneto. are we going full-on X-Men in this arc. I want the works. I want fucking sentinels and everything oh god please

oh shit I’m starting to worry about ol’ Mishi here

MIYASHITA, RUN

OH SHIT

IS HE GOING TO SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK!?? HOLY SHIT!??

holy fucking shitballs oh christ

this dude is straight up murdering his best employee, Nezu’s cousin, all because he didn’t agree with his favorite book!?

...

holy shit

fuck. I’m speechless

okay. okay shit. well. uh. Detnerat, huh

you have my attention, plot

hooooooooooly shit

holy shit holy shit holy shit

okay. calm down, self. let’s jot down some thoughts real quick

okay so one, that one shot of that guy with his hand on his hat has a decided Ian McKellen vibe to it. I’m telling you guys. X-Men references all over the damn place in this arc

two, the word “supremacy” was used. meaning this wasn’t just a “quirk rights” group, this was a quirk supremacist group. or is a quirk supremacist group, I should say. these people believe themselves to be the future of humankind. they don’t want liberation, they want control. and assuming we continue to follow the X-Men parallels here, they also believe themselves to be superior to those without superpowers and they’re looking to assert their authority over them

they clearly believe the current laws restricting the usage of quirks are a form of oppression and persecution and are looking to eradicate them

this seems like exactly the type of philosophy the League of Villains would be eager to spread, and I wouldn’t be surprised if another team-up is in the works here

lastly, if these guys are now in the business of making hero equipment, whoever buys from them had better be really careful, as I can easily see some sort of Iron Man 2 plotline going down in which there’s a secret command built into the coding of the new equipment which will sabotage its users once activated. or if you’d rather think of it in Star Wars terms rather than MCU, call it an “order 66” ploy

(ETA: well I partly called this one. still up in the air honestly, who knows.)

also: friendly reminder that Bakugou’s gauntlets were recently destroyed and he’s gonna be needing new ones! (:

so having said all that, let’s see how this pans out!

and right away, the prediction about them teaming up with the League is panning out. waste no time, huh

so Hooknose is telling him to do so at once

oh shit hold up

WELL I SURE GOT THAT BACKWARDS NOW DIDN’T I

lol oh shit. I totally forgot that AFO was the one who bombed the Army’s HQ all those decades and possibly centuries ago. I can’t believe these guys still remember that and know how AFO was connected to boot

also, is there a Rorschach thing going on here? I wonder if it’s a reference to the psychologist or to the comic book character from Watchmen. I’m betting the latter given the way they’re using the inkblots as masks, and also because this is a manga based on superhero comics after all

(ETA: yeah, Rorschach, Joker, and Magneto... drawing on a lot of classic villains and anti-heroes in this arc.)

ah so now we’re getting details on their new bid to enter the hero market

HOLD UP

WHAT THE FUCK THIS GUY LOOKS AWFULLY FUCKING FAMILIAR

IS THIS SHIRAKUMO??? AIZAWA WERE YOU NOT CONTENT WITH THE STRIKING SIMILARITY YOU ALREADY BORE TO KAKASHI? HAD TO GO AND ADD THE OLD FRIEND TURNED EVIL BACKSTORY TOO?? OR WHAT

given that this guy seems to have some sort of cloud-based power (look at what he’s riding! and now the people he just harassed and stole from are describing it as “carbonated water”), and kumo means “cloud”...

(ETA: nope, this is just good ol’ Soda Sam. Carbonation Carl.)

okay and now we’re cutting to a conversation between two as-yet-unknown parties that seem to be witnessing this robbery from a distance, and deciding whether or not to intervene

for a moment I entertained the idea that this might be Kacchan and Shouto with their hot-off-the-presses licenses, possibly talking to All Might? but none of this dialogue seems to have that Kacchan flair, and it also doesn’t make much sense for them to have attended the lesson accompanied by All Might and no one else. Aizawa’s been pretty good about making sure there’s always at least one other fighting pro accompanying them

so now this group of merry bandits is celebrating their new haul

OH SHITTTTTTT

ODDS OF THIS BEING BAKUGOU AND SHOUTO JUST SHOT WAAAAAAAAAY WAY UP OH MY GOD?!

OH MY GOD IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT?!

I SHOULD STOP DOUBTING MYSELF AND HORIKOSHI’S PROPENSITY FOR GIVING ME EXACTLY WHAT I WANT ALL OF THE TIME

motherfucker. you just know Kacchan spent that entire cab ride with his nose pressed to the window trying to sense danger and keeping his fingers crossed something like this would happen

(ETA: him and Shouto both, since the dialogue suggests it was Shouto that spotted it first! so basically one of them stationed at each window with All Might sandwiched in between wondering if he’s even going to survive this trip. the answer is yes, All Might, but not without it becoming Eventful.)

also, 30 minutes or 30 seconds, it hardly matters All Might. you know these two spent the last three months anticipating this moment every single minute of every day. they’re gonna go do reckless hero shit, All Might. THEY’RE JUST GONNA

oh my godddddddd

TodoBaku fighting against Aizawa’s possible friend-turned-villain in the snowwwwww having JUST EARNED THE SHIT OUT OF THEIR NEW LICENSES HELL YEAHHHHHHHHH

and it appears Kacchan does have a gauntlet. goddammit. make that propensity for giving me almost exactly what I want, most of the time

anyways, I don’t really care! life is good. life is fucking amazing, fam

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #redestro #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #poor miyashita just kept on digging himself in deeper didn't he #'hey boss you sure are bald'#'and our business is very much not booming'#'oh hey what's that book you've got there'#'oh is that the one by destro?'#'lol I flippin' hate that guy'#'he's just the worst isn't he?'#'why no I don't have any friends or family or anyone who would miss me or notice my sudden disappearance in any capacity'#'why do you ask'#'boss?'#'...'

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whitehotharlots · 5 years

Text

TERF war

I took feminist lit and theory courses as an undergraduate, in 2003 and 04. For the time, the courses were incredibly trans inclusive (bear in mind this was a year before Jon Stewart would dismiss Dennis Kucinich’s suggestion of appointing a trans SCOTUS justice, referring to the hypothetic appointee as “the honorable chick with dick”). A good 20% of the course was dedicated to reading books by and about trans people. We even got a visit from Leslie Feinberg—the person who literally coined the term transgender, and one of the kindest souls I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The foundational, explicit understanding I was taught in these classes was that biological sex is innate, a fixed fact of a person’s bodily being, whereas gender is a fluid and malleable social construct. No one could have gotten through these classes thinking the opposite.

The utility of this understanding is easy to grasp: by denying the fixity of gender, feminists were able to undermine social and interpersonal structures that had traditionally denied women freedom, choice, dignity, and agency. A woman was not biologically destined to a life of domestic servitude; nor was she naturally inclined to be more submissive or deferential. Most germane to this discussion, this understanding validated the existence and experience of gender non-conforming lesbians: just because they were not traditionally feminine didn’t mean they weren’t women, or that they were in need of any fixing.

Very recently—within the last 5 or 6 years, as the abstract language of feminism has permeated the wider culture and gotten watered down for sake of digestibility—the poles have shifted. Now, we are told, it is actually gender which is fixed and innate, a metaphysical force lurking within us, suppressed by social pressures, unleashed gloriously with the aid of surgery and supplemental hormones. Biological sex, meanwhile, is a construct that doesn’t exist and shouldn’t even factor in to one’s analysis of gender relations. Sex is hereby an utter fabrication, a projection of the sick evils of normalized (cis male) consciousness engrained upon people’s erstwhile blank bodies. Taken to extreme, we are told this therefore means trans women can get periods and that there is “literally zero” difference between trans and cis women. Ergo, having a uterus doesn’t make you a woman, biological or otherwise—it simply makes you a “uterus haver.”

The utility of this shift comes from the fact that trans self-actualization relies not just on social positioning but on bodily experience. Trans peoples’ mental wellbeing often hinges on their having access to the medical interventions required to get their body to conform to their innate sense of gender. Since we live in a country where few people have access to basic healthcare, trans people have had to medicalize their position—assert a fundamental and harmful mind/body disconnect—in order to have these interventions regarded as essential, rather than elective.

So while it’s perfectly understandable and useful, this shift nonetheless represents a profound upending of decades of feminist thought, and I’m shocked that it doesn’t appear to have even been deliberated upon. It was asserted through tumblrs and tweets and everydayfeminism dot com posts, everyone kind of nodded their heads in agreement, and that has been that. For the most part.

Now, we might able to say that the reversal is simply academic: trans people and cis women each need to advance their respective theories of gender and sex to serve as the basis of political programs that might afford safety and respect to each group. There’s no need, necessarily, to concern ourselves too exclusively with the details. Consider a parallel: anyone who was actually involved in theoretical side of gay rights in the 70’s-90’s knows that saying gay people were “born gay” was not a universally agreed upon assertion. Many argued that this was essentially a reactionary frame which stigmatized homosexuality, making it seem like gays would have chosen to be straight if only their brains or genes hadn’t screwed things up. Eventually however, the “born this way” line prevailed, became mainstream, and was the basis of most of the gay rights campaigns of this century. Most of the people who disagreed with it on academic grounds still supported it, at least publicly, once they became aware of its political utility. Why can’t we do the same with today’s split conceptualizations of gender and sex?

Seriously, why can’t we?

The sex/gender-fluid/innate reversal came around the time when trans people started receiving their first regular, non-dismissive appearances in US media. This was the first time most people had been bothered to think seriously about gender, and the first time that the existence of trans people was admitted to as something that wasn’t freakish or a punchline. That’s a huge positive, obviously. And it happened with surprisingly little mainstream pushback (compare the responses to Laverne Cox’s appearance in Orange is the New Black with the intense outrage that accompanied Ellen Degeneres coming out just 15 years earlier—the difference is astounding).

This is where things get troublesome. Many established feminists, especially second wavers, were upset to see their life’s work upended in such a way. Some reacted horribly dismissively. Others wrote thoughtful, seemingly even-handed pieces that nonetheless seemed calculated to subtly dismiss the experiences of trans people, like by repeatedly misgendering trans authors. And still others respectfully expressed objections to or concerns with mainstream trans rights assertions. These writers tended to operate in either academic or upper-middlebrow spaces, and their prose is consequently calm, erudite, and often super dense. The rebuttals to these pieces came from places like jezebel, loveisarainbow dot com, or geocities.com/sunsetstrip/3765/madtransbitch. These pieces are easily digestible, frequently angry or even violent, and hyperbolic without exception, accusing the cis feminists of fomenting or even committing violence against trans people. In the court of woke public opinion, the second wavers did not stand a chance. They were accused—sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly—of abject hatred of trans people, blamed for suicides and murders, and grouped in with the racists and homophobes of yore. Within a very short period of time, those who haven’t learned to be quiet have been shunted away to the darkest academic backwaters (or they live in the UK, where university cultural studies is dominated by second wavers).

But, again, why not just be quiet? Honestly, that’s my preferred approach. Maybe it would be different if I had based an academic career on one assertion over another. But overall it seems like both groups should still be able to pursue their own political agendas on their own terms, so why bother discussing this contradiction? And just on a personal (that is, cowardly) note, I might not agree that biological sex is a construct, and I certainly don’t think gender is innate, but I also think trans people should have easy access to medical intervention, so why not let the inversion stand?

But herein lies the problem: politically, the two groups are not separate. One of the most frequently levied criticisms against certain feminist authors and movements is a lack of trans-inclusivity. Pink pussy hats were verboten within hours of their debut. Colleges have cancelled productions of The Vagina Monologues (not because it’s overwrought treacle, but because it talks about vaginas, which makes it de facto transphobic). These incidents may seem trifling by themselves, but they serve as avatars of a very real and important conflict: cis feminists are being demanded to center their feminism in an understanding of sex and gender that directly contradicts the base of their ideology. Because of this, actions and symbols that were recently taken as signs of love and solidarity are now being cast as hate speech. Cis women are being told, literally, that they have no right to call themselves women (trans women are “women,” cis women are “menstruaters”). Cis lesbians are called homophobic for not being attracted to people with penises. In short, a trans movement that purports to dedicate itself to ensuring that its purveyors be given the right to be recognized by own their self-understanding is doing so by denying that same right to others.

The only possible result here is a complete collapse anything resembling a unified feminist movement. Meaning, I guess, that it fits in perfectly with the atomized understandings of social justice that stem from internet-based discourse. I suppose I could end with a plea for decency and understanding, perhaps even outline a alignment that would allow for trans advocates and cis feminists to recognize tactical points of departure from one another without fear of committing literal assault or denying the existence of one another. But we’re past that point, I think. There’s no more space for humane liberalism. Everything’s a knock-down, drag-out these days. We don’t even pretend to want to help one another.

Addendum:

People are raising the fair point that a vast majority of trans people don’t subscribe to the sort of wrecker beliefs I outline here. That is absolutely true and part of what makes the shittiness of online gender discourse so tragic. I did not mean to suggest that these beliefs are at all common among trans people. I intended to criticize only the shitty woke media apparatus (everydayfeminism et al) that occludes any attempt at effectively theorizing gender because it prioritizes hyperbolic victim mongering over achieving political goals.

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jojofurkmelifu · 5 years

Text

Steven and the Diamonds

White Diamond: Yes I will look at the memory data on this Pearl *looks at it* Steven:So anything? White Diamond:Quite the adventure you have been on Pink Diamond, no Rose Quartz Steven:Rose Quartz? White Diamond:Oh sorry I meant STEVEN UNVIERSE *Steven shits his pants* Steven:Um I can explain White Diamond:No need you thing I understand exactly what you are, but the fact something of your existence has set foot in my presence really bothers me Steven:I guess I'll just be going now heh heh White Diamond:No stay Blue Diamond:Huh shes not Pink? Yellow Diamond:Where is PInk? Tell us Rose! White Diamond:Thats not Rose you idiots, Rose is just one of Pink's many alter egos she tricked us for thousands of years Blue Diamond:So she never died? Yellow Diamond:What? What? Then what is that thing down there? White Diamond:Some sort of combination of gem and organic from Earth identified as the sound "Steven Universe" Blue Diamond:So thats what you meant by Steven you little! Steven:Diamonds please I can explain White Diamond:Calm down you two dont make noise in my court *Blue and Yellow shit their pants* White Diamond:Pink my dear Pink perhaps its time I give you a reality check Steven:Huh White Diamond:Millions of years ago I decided to create three constructs to follow my grand creation the gem empire that would one day conquer the entire universe in time. I didnt have to create you three I could have ruled it by myself, GEMS ARE MY CREATIONS NOT YOURS I JUST LOAN THEM TO YOU REMEMBER THAT. It also means you are also mine you do what I say, i gave you life and I can take it away anytime I wish. So the least you ungrateful children can do is MAKE ME HAPPY! Blue and Yellow are wonderful daughters but you you you you ohhhhhh. Im so disgusted I cant even think straight *breathes in* Pink I gave you a colony 900,000 years ago and you messed up big time so I decided to held off giving you one until after you matured. I thought you matured but I was wrong

White Diamond:It seems as though you are unfit for running a colony or commanding gems meaning you have no purpose as a diamond. It means I was wrong I HATE BEING WRONG I HATE IT! Me a perfect being wrong its unfathomable! Three perfect creations that all I asked for! ALL I ASKED FOR! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The failure of gems dont matter to me but you are my personal creations you must never fail you have to be perfect like me why arent you like me! *she breaks down into tears* Blue:Pink you made White cry Yellow:Steven I know Pink is there I can sense her in you, what do you have to say for yourself Steven:Look I dont know whats really going on here Im just a human from Earth, and Pink Diamond is my mom Im just doing this because I dont want the Earth to be seen as an enemy to the Diamond Authority so could you please leave Earth alone? White Diamond:Leave it alone! That planet is now a reminder of my imperfection it must be eviscerated. Blue:I agree Yellow:Absolutely Steven:Oh no :( White Diamond:So Steven Universe return to your rock and enjoy your last days with your species until their extinction at our hands, and blame no one but your stupid "mother" Pink Diamond for your suffering. Steven:Wait please dont do this, kill me instead leave the people of Earth alone! Blue:Never Yellow:We never let any species that disrespects us live at all its just protocol Steven Universe White Diamond:As for you Pink I can believe Im doing this, you are clearly banned from the Diamond Authority forever. You will be seen as a nongem to all gems form this moment, you will have no diamond privileges, you will not be allowed on any gem controlled territory either. Your court will be split and shared among your sisters, and your planet will be given to either Blue or Yellow but it seems they want to destroy it so Ill just give the entire star system to one of them no need to waste all of that matter.

*Steven breaks down in tears* Steven:Please Ill do anything to make you not destroy Earth Blue:What part of Never can you not understant SteVON Universe? Yellow:Hmphf we are done here now get of this planet White Diamond:Remember you thing this is all Pink Diamond's fault, gather up this worthless Pearl, those "crystal gems" and your pet leave this planet. Never come back or you will be sorry Pink Ill do something far worse than killing you stupid girl. *Blue begins crying* Blue:You went too far this time! It breaks my heart that I cant even consider my sister one of my own anymore but I'll still love you no matter what Pink we just wont see each other anymore forever Yellow:Stupid runt this is goodbye it was fun I guess little sister *Yellow Diamond shows slight signs of sniffling* White Diamond:If you are gonna make that noise do it outside my court! *Blue and Yellow leave* *Steven gets the gang and they take a ship back to earth, the ship self destructs after it leaves them on Earth to ensure they can never get back to Homeworld* *Steven falls to the ground in utter defeat unable to even talk* *Connie begins freaking out about the upcoming gem invasion* *The crystal gems begin crying as well*

*weeks past and Steven is suffering from intense despair and depression over the ordeal* *Greg is sad as well his Stewball is a sad sack* *Back at the temple* Garnet:So its war then a second gem war but we have no forces we need some sort of rebel army Bismuth:We only survived because it was staged by Rose I mean Pink Diamond in real war we cant beat the Diamonds Garnet:So what do we do? Bismuth:Look I know Rose sorry Pink Diamond loved this planet but if it means Im going to be killed for it then Im out Lapis:I agree its just one planet out of many that has water on it Peridot:A logical assertion but Steven really likes this planet so I cant give up on it because hes my friend Lapis:Steven will be really happy with me and him just alone somewhere out there in the cosmos just us two hehehehehe *Bismuth gives a wtf expression* Garnet:Steven cant be reasoned with right now hes pretty down so all we can do is try to make him happish by giving him hope he can stand on Bismuth:Yellow can instantly end us this is not a fight at all its a massacre its like a star fighting an asteroid there just is no chance at victory. Peridot:Maybe the cluster can help? Garnet:Huh? Peridot:Its friends with Steven but the cluster should be able to match the diamonds in power Garnet:Its a gem fusion meaning one hit from Yellow and its over Bismuth:In my fight with the diamonds they are pretty indestructable nothing we used even scratched them and that White Diamond is said to be even more powerful than those two combined and shes coming here too Garnet:Right White Diamond how do we stop her? Lapis:Lets just run away and take Steven with us! Hes gonna outlive all the creatures on this planet anyway but we can live forever with him. Bismuth:I made an oath to Steven Lazuli I cant just betray him Im not his mother Pearl:Uhhh well are there any bright ideas?

Peridot:The only way to beat a diamond is to use a diamond, a diamond has more power than all gem armies put together non fusion wise I mean if we had one we could destroy every army Homeworld throws at us Bismuth:We do? Garnet:Steven isnt Pink Diamond Pearl:Actually the gem on Steven's belly is Pink Diamond so we could bring her back if Steven were dead? But I would never do something like that even if the planet Pink wasted her life on was threatened. Bismuth:Right.... Garnet: If only there was a way to summon Pink without killing Steven, Steven even if he could use Pink's power doesnt have the mindset to really fight the Diamonds we need her Pearl:Well Im not supposed to tell you this but you could talk to her you know *every gem looks at her dumbfounded* Garnet:Pearl why? Why?! Bismuth:You have got to be kidding me I think Im gonna drown my face in some magma again this time for 400 years Peridot:What a revelation! hahaha Lapis:What? Pearl:Im sorry I couldnt really tell you Garnet:Talk to Pink Diamond I dont know Ruby and Sapphire wont like that Bismuth:Its the only way Pearl:Very Well then Ill show you.

*They are in some sort of dimensional space for minds or something* *They see Steven playing in field* Garnet:Steven why are you so cheerful? "Steven":Im always cheerful Garnet I love being human and happy ahahahaha Garnet:Rose Steven:Oh no you found out *Steven morphs into Pink Diamond* PD:So you found out huh? What did you think was it funny? Garnet:Funny? Do you have any idea how many gems died because of you? PD:Oh man you should have seen Blue crying it was hilarious Garnet:Pink why did you start the rebellion? You told me as Rose it was the protect the Earth was that true? PD:This again Garnet I already told you no more questions, but if you wanna know yes I did start the rebellion because all attempts at the Earth being ran my style failed Garnet:Was it worth it? PD:Earth is still here right so yes Ameythst:Uh hey Rose I mean Pink Diamond you are my diamond right so like Im supposed to follow you. PD:No I dont care what you do I dont really care if gems grovel to me Ameythst:Wow you are so much cooler than those duds back on Homeworld PD:My Ameythsts understand me so well Bismuth:You told me that the diamonds are the enemy and that our reward for winning the rebellion was freedom, and yet you bubbled me PD:Bismuth how are you doing, it been thousands of years still making weapons I see Bismuth:Dont change the subject PD:Sigh you have freedom no diamond is telling you what to do right? Theres your freedom embrace it Pearl:My diamond because of your actions planet Earth is at risk PD:What but the faking of my death? Pearl:Unfortunately thanks to your son the diamonds found out about it PD:Oh Steven Pearl:So I ask you what we your orders for the upcoming invasion? PD:I dunno why are you asking me I dont anything about tactics, Rose Quartz was really me thinking up stuff on the fly Im not military person you see Bismuth:Um..... Pearl:My diamond I understand you can be quite whimsical but this is serious

PD:Well nobody told him to talk to my sisters did they? Pearl:My diamond hes only a child he felt guilty over the things you did and he felt it was the best way to save Earth PD:A child ignores what mom and dad keeps hidden from them, I guess Steven's just a bad kid reminds me of myself sometimes Im so proud of him Garnet:Ahem, your sisters are gonna invade this planet what are you plans? PD:I just told you I got no plans Pearl:What if Earth is destroyed? PD:Oh well at least do me a favor stuff my sweet Greg into a pocket space so I can play with him for the rest of time will you Pearl Pearl:You remember the human PD:Oh Greg I miss you so much how I loved your organic tentacles inside of my body! Pearl:Too much information my diamond

(courtesy of /sug/ we need this as you do)

#/sug #/sug/#sug #steven universe #su #white diamond #blue diamond #Yellow Diamond #pink diamond #steven quartz universe #pearl #garnet #bismuth #lapis #peridot #4chan #not mine #diamonds #Diamond authority

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crimethinc · 6 years

Text

Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom–How “Nobody Is above the Law” Abets the Rise of Tyranny

We saw you last night among thousands of other anti-Trump demonstrators around the US. Their signs proclaimed, “No one is above the law.” You were the one with the sign reading “I love laws.” We need to talk.

Really, this is what gets you into the streets? Trump’s goons have been kidnapping your neighbors, preparing to block your access to abortion, openly promoting “nationalism,” calling the targets for lone wolf assassins who send mail bombs and shoot up synagogues—and your chief concern is whether what they’re doing is legal?

And if Trump and his cronies were to change the laws—what then?

If you’re trying to establish the foundation for a powerful social movement against Trump’s government, “no one is above the law” is a self-defeating narrative. What happens when a legislature chosen by gerrymander passes new laws? What happens when the courts stacked with the judges Trump appointed rule in his favor? What will you do when the FBI cracks down on protests?

If everything that put Trump in a position to implement his agenda were legal, would you be at peace with it, then? When some nice centrist politician takes office after him, but the police keep enforcing the policies he introduced and the judges he appointed keep judging, will you withdraw from the streets? Come to think of it, where were you under Obama when people were being imprisoned and deported by the million? Perhaps you have no problem with millions of people being imprisoned and deported as long as no one colludes with Russia or talks over a journalist?

We saw other protesters with signs entreating us to “Save Democracy.” Didn’t democracy inflict Trump on us in the first place? Isn’t it democracy that just brought Bolsonaro to power in Brazil—a racist, sexist, and homophobic advocate of the Brazilian military dictatorship and extrajudicial killings? If democracy enables outright fascists to legitimize their authority rather than having to seize power by force, what’s so great about it, exactly?

If “no one is above the law,” that means the law is above all of us. It means that the law—any law, whatever law happens to be on the books—is more valuable than our dearest desires, more righteous than our most honorable aspirations, more important than our most deep-seated sense of right and wrong. This way of thinking prizes group conformity over personal responsibility. It is the kiss of death for any movement that aims to bring about change.

Social change has always involved illegal activity—from the American Revolution to John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, from the sit-in movement to the uprising in Ferguson. If not for the courageous deeds of people who were willing to break the law, we’d still be living under the king of England. Many of us would still be enslaved.

That is what makes your cheerleading for the FBI so chilling. You’re familiar with COINTELPRO, presumably, and many of the other ways that the FBI has set out to crush movements for social change? Imagine that your best-case scenario plays out and the FBI helps to orchestrate Donald Trump’s removal from power. What do you think that the FBI would do with all the legitimacy that would give them in the eyes of liberals and centrists? It would have carte blanche to intensify its attacks on poor people, people of color, and protesters, destroying the next wave of social movements before they can get off the ground. Nothing could be more naïve than to imagine that the FBI will focus on policing the ruling class.

The greatest peril we face is that Trump’s government will be replaced by a centrist government that will continue most of the current administration’s policies without violating any rules or norms. The more Trump’s regime is described as exceptional, the easier it will be for the next administration to get away with the same activities. In the long run, the system is at its most dangerous when it does not outrage people.

Mobilizing to support an FBI Director in response to the firing of one of the most racist Attorney Generals in living memory—this is the same “lesser of two evils” argument some have made for voting taken to its logical extreme; this approach guarantees that we will be reduced to advocating for the second worst of all possible evils. Firing Jeff Sessions helps Trump evade Mueller’s investigation, yes, but let’s be clear—men like Sessions, Trump, and Mueller do the most harm in the course of carrying out their official duties in strict observation of the law.

What Gives the Law Legitimacy in the First Place?

In the feudal era, when kingly authority was thought to be bequeathed by God and laws were decreed by kings, it was at least internally consistent to hold that everyone had a sacred duty to obey them. Today, this assumption lingers as a sort of holdover—yet without any rational basis. Certainly, the law decrees that no one is above it, but that’s just circular reasoning. What obliges us to regard laws as more valid then our own personal ethics?

Partisans of democracy like to imagine that laws arise because of their general utility to the population as a whole. On the contrary, for most of the history of the state, laws were decreed by monarchs and dictatorships—and only existed on account of their utility to rulers. Sovereignty itself is a fundamentally monarchist metaphor. If we no longer believe in the divine right of kings, that undermines any inherent claim that laws could have on our obedience. Rather than blindly complying, we have a responsibility to decide for ourselves how we should act. To cite Hannah Arendt, “No one has the right to obey.”

The law masquerades as a sort of social contract existing for everyone’s benefit. But if it’s really in everyone’s best interest, why is it so hard to get people to abide by it? The truth is, neither the powerful nor the oppressed have ever had good cause to obey laws—the former because the same privileges that enable them to write the laws release them from the necessity of observing them, the latter because the laws were not established for their benefit in the first place. It shouldn’t be surprising that a billionaire like Trump does not obey the laws. What’s surprising is that you still think that the rest of us ought to.

What’s the difference between the illegal activity of a Donald Trump and the illegal activity of a person who engages in civil disobedience? If “no one is above the law,” then they’re both equally in the wrong. No, the real distinction between them is that one is acting for selfish gain while the other is attempting to create a more egalitarian society. This is the important question—whether our actions serve to reproduce hierarchies or undermine them. We should focus on this question, not on whether any given action is legal.

What we are seeing today is the fracturing of our society. The peace treaties that stabilized capitalism through the second half of the 20th century are collapsing, and members of the ruling class are adopting rival strategies to weather the crises ahead. On one side, nationalists like Trump are betting on chauvinism and brute force, preparing to make the best of it as society splinters into warring groups. On the other side, centrist technocrats want to present themselves as the only imaginable alternative, using the specter of Trump and his kind to justify their own quest for authority. When they get back into office, you can bet that they won’t turn down any additional power that Trump has vested in the state. Your advocacy for “the rule of law” is music to their ears. And, of course, whatever additional power and legitimacy they concentrate in the state will be passed on to the next Trump, the next Bolsonaro.

Each side aims to instrumentalize the discourse of law and order in order to outflank the other in the battle for power. This isn’t new; it’s as old as the state itself. Immediately after the confirmation of Kavanaugh, you’re a sucker to imagine that the law represents some sort of social consensus rather than the edicts of whoever happens to control the institutions. To fetishize obedience to the law is to accept that might makes right.

To march under the banner “no one is above the law” is to spit in the faces of all those for whom the daily functioning of the law is an experience of oppression and injustice. It is to reject solidarity with the sectors of society that could give a social movement against Trump leverage in the streets. It is to assert the political center as a discrete entity that holds itself apart—that views both Trump and the social movements that oppose him as rivals to its own power. Finally, it is to legitimize the very instrument of oppression—the law—that Trump will eventually use to suppress your movement. Remember “Lock her up”?

You have to ask yourself some important questions now. Do you love laws—or justice? Do you love rights—or freedom?

If it’s laws you believe in, you’re on the right track. Just don’t have any illusions about what it means to value the law above everything else. If it’s justice you want, on the other hand, you need to be prepared to break the law. In that case, you need a totally different narrative to explain what you’re doing.

If it’s rights you’re after, you’ll need a government to grant them, protect them, and—inevitably—take them away when it sees fit. Whenever you use the discourse of rights, you set the stage for this to occur. There are no rights without a sovereign to bestow them. On the other hand, if you love freedom, rather than vesting legitimacy in the government, you’d better make common cause with everyone else who has a stake in collectively defending themselves against invasive efforts to impose authority, whether from Trump or his Democratic rivals.

From the anarchist perspective, all of us are above the law. Our lives are more precious than any legal document, any court decision, any duty decreed by the state. No social contract drawn up in the halls of power could provide a basis for mutually fulfilling egalitarian relations; we can only establish those on our own terms, working together outside any framework of imposed responsibilities. The law is not our salvation; it is the first and greatest crime.

Further Reading

The Centrists

From Democracy to Freedom

Don’t celebrate the exception; abolish the rule.

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rannadylin · 5 years

Note

Fluff, Network, Offspring for Vi; Alignment, Grudge and Question for Anselm; Law, Pistol, Upcoming for Audie; Jaded, Law and Question for Glynis; Alignment, Fluff, Kin, Question and Touch for Ianthe

A-Z Headcanon Asks

Violet:

Fluff :: What hits their soft spot? Doesanything them into emotional goo?Edér’s sense of humor, mostly. Vi is a Very Serious Fluff and hisability to make her laugh even when things are pretty terrible is a large partof her falling for him. Seeing him go all silly over every stray pet theycollect brightens her day, too.

Also, Eothas. It’s obviously gonna be a complicatedrelationship she has with her god after Sun in Shadow, and worse, after hewrecks Caed Nua, but the first time she gets to actually talk to him in theDeadfire just melts her. Her devotion after that point isn’t just theoreticalor practical; she’s delighted to find him, well, likeable, even in the midst of another of his crazy schemes.

Network :: Are they connected to the people?How much do they reach out to others?

She takes that aspect of priesthood very seriously, thoughshe has to push herself to reach out at times when she’s more geared toward thecontemplative, introspective side of her calling. In the Dyrwood, she welcomes secretEothasians to her secret chapel in Caed Nua and has Edér to help her find suchfolk through the Night Market. Apart from church folk, she keeps incorrespondence with some of her family – Audie especially, before the clanvisited Caed Nua, and more of them after that – and with friends from her Dyrwood adventures, especially Kana and, when he bothers to write, Aloth – but she’s not much for socialevents and that kind of networking.

Offspring :: What kind of parent would they be?Would they prefer one, or multiple?She’s got lots of experience wrangling younger siblings, but ofcourse it’s different when it’s your own. Vi’s compassion and resolve and tendencyto give every situation careful thought would all come in handy with her kidsthough; she’s a devoted and caring mother, though on the other hand that“giving things careful thought” can make her hesitate to act quickly whendiscipline is called for. And…given her clan/city traditions…I’m not sure shecould handle having just one child, if she’s going to have any at all. XDThey’re meant to have siblings, right? Lots of those?

In the Soul & Shield world state, she and Edér willprobably adopt. In other world states – Deadfire canon included – she andAnselm will have a bunch. I think that letter to Eidis mentioned at leastthree? There will probably be more after that.

[more behind a cut, so many wonderful questions! ;-D]

Anselm:

Alignment :: What would be their D&Dalignment? How might it come into play?Hmmmm…this is tougher than it seems it should be. I mean he’s got arather particular sense of honor but also does not hesitate to use his Watchauthority to bend the rules if they get in the way. And he was certainly moreselfish in his youth whereas he’s trying to be more altruistic these days, so Isuppose he’s mid-shift from something like Lawful Evil to True Neutral? Oof,that’s my best guess anyway.

Grudge :: How bad does an insult go over? Dothey hold a grudge long?He’s got a lot of confidence (or…well…retains the veneer of it atleast, possibly to cover up a self-doubt that’s been growing since Violet leftand only now being challenged) to shrug off an insult, or more likely fire asubtle comeback. Grudges…are beneath him, mostly. Vengeance is more effective. Why stew over an injury done to you when you have the power to retaliate and assert your own superiority?

Question :: How often do they feel doubt? Whattopics are they defensive about?He’s always doubting whether he’s really any better now than he was whenViolet left. (Recent developments regarding someItzli sisters’ views of him may help to quiet those doubts. 😉)And he’s a little defensive about being a cipher, always expecting people tomistrust him for it and having to prove himself.

Audie:

Law :: What do they think about abiding rules?Are they selective about it?Audie thinks people should abide the rules that she makes, basically. Those that stand in her way, on the otherhand, were ill-advised. (To be fair, the world would run pretty smoothly if she were running it. Pity she wasn’t around when the Engwithans were deifying people.)

Pistol :: Is this character skilled with aweapon? What’s their opinion of violence?Oh, very skilled with her knives, both for stabbing and throwing.Being in the Citlatl militia longer than the rest of the Itzli siblings has hardenedher to violence, as well, though not to a great extent as the city’s been atpeace for all her life and it’s just fairly routine patrols and scouting andsuch for now. She’s not necessarily looking for a fight (not physically, at least: she’s almost always challenging someone at least psychologically) but she won’t back down from one either.

Upcoming :: How much do they think of thefuture? Do they make long-term plans?Lots of contingency plans, I think. She has the most influence onthe family’s business pursuits these days, so she does a lot of networking fortrade contracts (oh, and I think I’ve settled on the family business being inthe textile industry… :-D They totally make fabric from Ginny’s alpaca yarn,too, and some of the embroidery on the finer bolts of cloth and on the garmentsmade for export is done by some Itzli siblings as well as hired employees…) and she oversees plans for production and that sort of thing. But then she also hasPlans B and C and several more degrees of what they’ll do if anything goeswrong. So it’s a long-term series of short-term plans? Sort of?

Glynis:

Jaded:: Do they buy into the “happily ever after” ideal? What’s their standard?Her life is the gods’. And…she’s a visionary. Like, literally, theHaven is the product of her visions (from the gods, she assumes, and she’s probably right). And theyhaven’t told her anything about settling down happily ever after, so that makesTicatl’s attempts at courtship kind of awkward for a while.

Law:: What do they think about abiding rules? Are they selective about it?She is a very rule-abiding missionary, convinced that only by being above-boardand doing all that they do among the heathen in the light of Eothas can theyconvince people to convert. (On some level she feels like consorting with Ticatl is breaking the rules, though asfar as I know there isn’t any such rule, but it’s more to do with her role asRectrix and her fear of dividing her attention too much if she falls in love…atsome point she was, ahem, selective enough about that self-imposed rule thatshe did in fact end up pregnant, though, so there’s that.)

Question:: How often do they feel doubt? What topics are they defensive about?She is not a philosopherlike Violet, so rather than welcoming doubt as a chance to examine the truth closer,she tends to try to outshine it and cling tighter to the tenets of Engwithanfaith, of which she’s pretty enthusiastically convinced. She’s a littledefensive about her visions of the Haven, when that first starts happening andshe’s trying to convince the other missionaries they need to build this thing.

Ianthe:

Alignment :: What would be their D&D alignment? How mightit come into play?Hmmmmm. Lawful neutral maybe, given her respect for authority evenwhen she’s not fully on board with Thaos’ methods?

Fluff :: What hits their soft spot? Does anything them intoemotional goo?Hugs from Glynis. Appreciation – Ianthina so regularly feelsoverlooked and persuades herself to just live with it, that if someone treatsher with genuine regard it’s a little overwhelming (and she’s forever grateful,once she gets over the initial suspicion depending on where said regard iscoming from).

Kin :: What’s their role among their relations? Do theyconsider others family?Hmmm well for actual blood relations, her parents died young but Idunno [yet] why, and I don’t think she had much other family – no siblings,maybe an aunt or uncle or something out there? And of course she ends upviewing Thaos as a father figure but that takes a while. I don’t know if sheeven got to the point of considering Glynis like family, though she’ll alwaysconsider her as her best friend, but their time together in training was brief,relative to the rest of Ianthe’s time in the gods’ service. (As for hersort-of-stepmother Deoiridh, in whatever version of the story gives them achance to get to know each other better, she kind of views her more asa…sister, or cousin or something, but keeps that view to herself. XD)

Question :: How often do they feel doubt? What topics arethey defensive about?Having had her doubts about the gods confirmed after theInquisition, and yet coming back to serve them anyway, she’s got a tendency nowto be even more skeptical and assume her doubts about anything are true. But tostill do what seems most practical, even if contrary to her doubts. She’s defensiveabout her role in the Inquisition, especially the lover she had who went overto Iovara’s cause, but she’s even more defensive about her inclination to mercyafter she returns to the gods’ service. It goes against all her practical nature,after all; but she’s just seen too muchruthlessness in the Inquisition to let that be her first resort anymore, evenif she feels at first like this disappoints her mentor…

Touch :: How do they handle contact? Is their personal bubblebig?She’s fairly aloof, definitely a big bubble, maybe something to dowith being an only child. Glynis was almost instantly granted an exception tothis standoffishness – look, when the first acolyte you meet in the barracks upon enteringtemple training greets you with an enthusiastic and very fluffy hug and then lookschagrined at overstepping and clearly hopes she hasn’t started off on the wrongfoot with her new roommate, sometimes you can’t help but set aside your awkwarddiscomfort and tell her it’s fine. And take a liking to this fluffy littleidealist with eyes as big as her dreams who clearly needs a more sensiblefriend to help rein in her wilder ideas. (Oh goodness, I really need to writesome early Ianthe & Glynis fic, don’t I?)

#a to z headcanons #violet #watcher violet #anselm coatl #audrisa itzli #glynis #ianthina #inquisitor ianthina #csi: citlatl #thanks for asking!#grumpy-jedi

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beinglibertarian · 5 years

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A Libertarian Defense of the Social Contract

I know, I’ve never signed the social contract either.

Now that that is out of the way, the real reason to defend the social contract is that it puts rights into a framework where they can be discussed and manipulated. Without an agreement, there are no rights in a literal sense; instead, there are any number of Platonic ideals which exist in the minds or philosophies of any number of different individuals or groups.

Were they simply articulated, they would only describe how people should act, and would not ensure that the parties involved act accordingly. The vast majority of the theories on human rights are never articulated at all, let alone put into practice. What is necessary to bring rights into being more concretely is an explicit, preferably universal framework defining the rule set used to interact with others; a social contract.

There is a tendency to claim absolute rights and not concern oneself with the corresponding responsibilities. Freedom of speech without the obligation to be subjected to speech that might be considered offensive is impracticable. Further, if someone does abuse their rights, for example, by committing an armed robbery, then the “inalienable” right to bear arms can be alienated by government or by civilians in the case of self-defense. These actions are predictable and reliable because of the social contract.

Rights, although supposedly self-evident, innate, and inalienable, defy being identified across groups at all levels of society. One can assert God-given rights, but it is clear that there is no agreement from people within the same religion – let alone between different religions – as to what those rights are. If rights are God-given, does the religion of a society change the rights of the people within it? While this was the prevailing thought throughout much of history, it is horribly outdated in modern society. Governments fare no better than religions at consistently determining what rights are, and the government of “the land of the free” fares no better, oxymorons notwithstanding.

The United States Constitution lists a couple of rights, then declares in the 9th Amendment that those not specifically stated still count too. The 9th Amendment in practice is grossly ineffectual; in Wickard v Filburn the US Supreme Court decided that a farmer who grew his own wheat to feed the animals on his own farm violated the interstate commerce clause. Even something so innate as the right to self-sufficiency is not obvious enough to be exempted from government attack in the “land of the free.” The inadequacy of unarticulated rights is shown clearly by the abject failure of the 9th Amendment to protect them.

The core of libertarianism is the belief in the primacy of the individual. History has shown us that in order to be real, individual rights must be backed by force. Without the ability to resist the state or other aggressors who may attempt to subvert one’s rights, those rights evaporate back into nebulous abstraction. Although the Kulaks in Ukraine may have been wronged during the Holodomor, pleas to the Soviets about the violation of their rights did not help to secure their farms or their produce from the state’s expropriation, and they were systematically starved to death by the millions. In practice, the only rights that the individual can rely on to exist in any real sense on are the ones that have been agreed to, and those are necessarily obtained and protected by means of resistance against oppression.

Positive & Negative Rights

A negative right is a natural right, an ability to do something that requires no action from others except to refrain from interfering. Usually, these rights are self-evident: one may have the right to travel and may expect others not to block the road, for example. These rights become less obvious when those who would interfere are restrained from “protecting” people, particularly when protecting those people from themselves. When people use heroin, or prostitute themselves, or to otherwise utilize their natural rights to self-abuse, a grey area appears. Most libertarians do not agree with the state interfering in such situations, but it is likely that most would also support friends’ or loved ones’ right to intervene, e.g. it is consistent with most peoples’ libertarian vision for a parent to use force to prevent a child from self-harm.

A positive right is one that requires resources from the collective to be used for an individual, so they impose a cost on society to offer a benefit to individuals. Positive rights raise the hackles of libertarians, generally speaking. This is not surprising, considering some of the positive rights that have made various lists. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights has among its number the right to subsidized child care, paid holidays, and the right to enjoy the arts.

Some disapprove of positive rights because they impose costs on others. This claim is superficially plausible, but I contend that it actually renders all rights inert. Take for example Rand Paul’s supposition that universal health care imposes a claim on his labor and that this is tantamount to slavery. Why is the Senate exempted from this principle? Doesn’t Paul’s pay, derived from taxation, make all taxpayers his slaves by the same logic? If we take this principle to its logical conclusion there can be no government whatsoever.

Don Boudreaux wrote an editorial for Cafe Hayek where he said: “Rights pre-exist government. Therefore, even if – as most people believe – government is necessary to help secure individuals’ rights, government does not create that which it itself is created to help to secure.” I’m a fan of Dr. Boudreaux’s, but I don’t quite agree with his premise. What is right exists outside of government. Rights, outside of abstraction, exist as a function of the agreement between people. This doesn’t need to be an agreement with a government, but without an agreement, the rights do not exist in any real sense, they are just ideas.

Taking the argument too far in the other direction, Jeremy Bentham called the idea of natural rights “nonsense on stilts” and instead viewed utilitarianism – the idea that rights should provide maximal happiness for the people – as providing a means of determining which rights should and which should not exist. Bentham was also a master of the run-on sentence:

“As to the law of nature, if (as I trust it will appear) it be nothing but a phrase; if there be no other medium for proving any act to be an offence against it, than the mischievous tendency of such act; if there be no other medium for proving a law of the state to be contrary to it, than the inexpediency of such law, unless the bare unfounded disapprobation of any one who thinks of it be called a proof; if a test for distinguishing such laws as would be contrary to the law of nature from such as, without being contrary to it, are simply inexpedient, be that which neither our author, nor any man else, so much as pretended ever to give; if, in a word, there be scarce any law whatever but what those who have not liked it have found, on some account or another, to be repugnant to some text of Scripture; I see no remedy but that the natural tendency of such doctrine is to impel a man, by the force of conscience, to rise up in arms against any law whatever that he happens not to like. What sort of government it is that can consist with such a disposition, I must leave to our author to inform us.”

Unfortunately, after offering this superficially plausible argument against natural rights in which their weakness is that they are derived from scripture rather than reason and can be overturned by force, Bentham went on to support something he called “felicific calculus.” This is a method by which the amount of “happiness” derived from a law can be used to legitimize it. If a law is determined to create more unhappiness than happiness, then it can be opposed on that basis. This, I think, is a far worse proposition than the “nonsense on stilts” idea of natural rights that he took issue with, and the reason is primarily the same one that allows people to oppose democracy.

If a country can starve one smaller portion of its population to death to support the majority, do the natural rights of the victims of such a policy, who are forced to suffer and die, disappear? How about if the other population is another country that happens to be a long established enemy? What if that other country has a different religion with different God-given rights? In this case is the felicity accrued amongst all of the people subject to the “true” rights, and the harm is entirely put on those to whom the rights do not apply? Although Bentham rightly points out the contradictory nature of natural rights deriving from a god, his felicific calculus was nothing less than a philosophical well-spring of suffering that underpinned the worst social contracts that were responsible for many of the horrors of the 20th century, the aforementioned Holodomor being only one example.

In The End, Force Matters

Bentham was wrong. If either side of a dispute over rights finds the current agreement to be insufficient and is unwilling to accept it, force will be the deciding factor. Successful use of force by government will subdue the rebellion and end the claim to new rights that were the basis of the fighting. The other possibility is that the rebels subdue the government and create a new contract which includes the contested rights in a new social contract.

With no government there is no social contract, and rights evaporate back into abstraction. If on the other hand some amount of government is allowable, the issue revolves around a frustratingly arbitrary line of what constitutes too much. If “the ruler rules by the consent of the ruled,” the ruled need to have some way to make their dissent known and felt. The trick is to set up a government powerful enough to enforce a social contract, but not so powerful as to abuse it. What makes the United States the greatest country in history is that the rulers guaranteed the ability of the ruled to consent and dissent to government policy. The constitutional protection of speech and notably the right to petition government allows us to make our dissent known. The right to keep and bear arms guarantees us the right to make our dissent felt.

If you are an anarcho-capitalist and are now yelling at your screen, “What about no government as an option?!?!” you have a legitimate point at least insofar as the government has a heavily tilted playing field with respect to their monopoly on the use of force. Social contracts are not an unalloyed good. Governments expropriate money from their citizens and use the money to buy the weapons that they say protect their citizens, but which simultaneously give them the ability to suppress their own people. I would argue that this is not justifiable and that each individual needs to decide what level of dissent is a sufficient level of action against the government under these circumstances.

Despite myriad abuses of government, anarchy doesn’t solve the problem either, although I would agree that it might limit the size and scope of the wrongdoings. What happens when someone in an anarchic situation tries to infringe upon your idea of what your rights are? Seems that you’re back in the same predicament: force (or the threat of force) will be used to settle the matter. When the matter is settled, the result is a new social contract.

The problem with anarchy is that this dispute can happen innumerable times, whereas in a society with a social contract the rules are generally consistent and this allows people to act under the assumption that they will be treated accordingly, and given a means of resolving related disputes. If an anarchic universal social contract were established, it is my contention that this would be a government, and the agreement would be law which establishes rights. An example of such a society exists: the Icelandic Commonwealth.

Too many libertarians scoff at the statist’s view of the social contract. This is due to the apologist’s acerbic citations of it to validate the victimization of people by the government: “X government action is acceptable because the victims agreed to the social contract.” The social contract is not your rights, and it is not, properly understood, a justification of their limitations, it only states the rights which have been agreed to. The social contract is an imperfect concept with imperfect implementations; its value comes from the fact that it makes rights actionable and the contract itself can be changed, and that it can establish and manifest human rights as a modus operandi; this stands in stark contrast to the unspecified rights of disordered anarchy, or the capricious rights granted by authoritarian governments.

The post A Libertarian Defense of the Social Contract appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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twitchesandstitches · 5 years

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Cobalt Stingers - Space Pirate Rivals to the MILF Fleet

THE COBALT STINGERS

Pretty much at the beginning of the fleet’s creation, the original groups comprising the fleet’s founding members split away from them and formed their own group and have since acted as rivals, friendly antagonists, and of late, anti-heroes willing to do things that the fleet does not when things get real serious once its become clear the danger the multiverse may be in.

For the most part, they are specifically an action-y group of space pirates that started at the exact same time and place as the fleet, armed with their own collection of strange magical artifacts and unique powers. They are dedicated rivals to the fleet, intending on making themselves into the most famous and powerful figures in all the multiverse, gathering many to them as groupies. Imagine a a combination of the ‘harmless adventuring pirate’ archetype and a rock band, with an emphasis on putting on as much of a show and garnering fame and attention, and you have them at the core. For the most part, they do not do much harm; these aren’t enemies, mostly. Eventually, though, as they become aware of the horrific situation the multiverse is in, they shift gears and attempt to avert catastrophe, in far more ruthless ways than the fleet will permit. In general, though, they are friendly rivals, lovers and exes, rather than true enemies. Less epic space battles, more goofy races for That Sweet Treasure Trove.

From the trolls was the big core of the cobalts, and the source of their name: Vriska Serket, a cerulean troll obsessed with the glorious part of her people and yearning for the security of a true homeland, became rivals with her friend Terezi over their disagreements over a thing called ‘collateral damage’, and with her partner (in every way) Eridan Ampora, around the same time that Terezi’s new mini-girlfriend Sierra got the Eupeptic Gestat with all its amazing power-gaining abilities, Vriska discovered something similar, a magical stone fountain that flowed not with water, but with raw power. It came with a key that fuses with the heart of whoever takes it for their own, and by claiming it, she can add powers to it and bestow them onto others as she pleases. She can make these claims by physically devouring them or in some way asserting her authority upon them; making them swear loyalty to her qualifies. However, in order to unlock its true powers, she must locate the final piece of the relic, a crown that confers absolute authority and dominon over others.

Some other trolls traveling with Vriska at the time included Ardata (a protege, of sorts, for Vriska), Lanque (a jadeblood vampire troll looking for adventure) a pair of yellowbloods naamed Folkyi and Kuprem (living FTL engines and enemy debuffer), and many others. Eridan Ampora also came with her, and most of the trolls that had origianlly been with their group and cared more for profit than secrets. They run the hemospectrum, but tend towardsd the colder colors, generally purple and blue.

From Sierra’s original group split off Alejandro and Heather, two humans that were effectively vilalins from their world, with a penchant for schemes, sabotaging foes through political manuevering, and had a hard time influencing someone as obstinate as Sierra was. They got along great with Vriska, finding something of a kindred spirit in her. Thanks to her, Alejandro has smoke-themed powers that let him turn into smoke or weaponize it, while Heather can turn into living diamond-like gold as a perfect defense. They also brought along Scarlet, a much nastier schemer than either of them, but who has found an occupation as a true schemer among them. Duncan has also joined them as something of a heavy-hitting enforcer type guy, and is a huge glory seeker even by their standards.

The Autobot remnants weren’t just Autobots; out of necessity they gathered neutrals who declined to join either side during the Cybertronian civil war, and even former Decepticons who had left their empire seeing the genocidal extremes it had sunk to, as well as their Lord Megatron being all but a outright vessel of some… thing they refuse to elaborate on. Tensions were high in this group, with mutual Autobot and Decepticon hatred, and most of those Decepticons followed former internal affairs and spymaster, Soundwave, as did his human-sized offspring: Ravage the beast-bot, mischievous Rumble, ferocious Frenzy, straitlaced Laserbeak, and obnoxious Ratbat. He elected to follow Vriska’s plans in pursuit of… well, not glory, no one knows WHY he cares. It’s suspected that he’s become something of a team dad to the Cobalts and even if he doesn’t care about fame or wealth, he does want them to stay secure. He is certainly obsessed with safety and security, above all else.

Other ‘Cons that have come with him includes the mighty Strika, and at least two known teams of former ‘Cons: the Stunticons, a hot-rodding team of mercenaries that transform into car analogues and presently led by sleek race car Knockout, who is also the chief of medical concerns on the pirate fleets) and the Combaticons, who prefer to be in their combined form of Bruticus Maximus, and otherwise are deadly tanks, jets and helicotpers, living engines of destruction; they’re very much like dark counterparts to the Dinobots, being a tight knit team built for destruction.

Those individuals and teams form the inner circle of the Cobalts, the most elite and respected of them. However, they wouldn’t be a threat to the fleet if they weren’t numerous, and they are VERY numerous, in general, it is best to assume that any given group that dispersed and became part of the fleet had their less ethical counterparts or enemies get snatched up with the Cobalts, and they have had a number of others join their ranks, as listed below. For the most part, note that any individual Cobalt is likely far more powerful than many of the fleet at once; while Vriska’s power fountain doesn’t give power quickly, it can empower people far more easily and plenty at once, without having to craft things as the Gestat does. Consequently, the Cobalts are way more powerful on average, though perhaps less versatile and not as modded up, for better or worse.

Additional Decepticons - Following Soundwave from the beginning or called since the events of the Cobalt’s forming; if a ‘Con from Robots In Disguise 2016 isn’t specifically listed elsewhere, assume they are here. They run the gamut from ‘monstrous robot modes’, to cars, and especially the militarized vehicles common to Decepticon ranks.

Gems: A good number of Gems have come to their side, initially for refuge, and later wit the promise of rebuilding their empire in time. Most of these originally hailed from Yellow Diamond’s court, but they include Holly Blue Agate, Aquamarine, possibly Jasper, Peridot and Lapis Lazuli depending on whether or not they fit better here or in the main crew (they may defect later). Generally former high-ranking Gems.

Eldar corsairs: Eldar pirates who prey on mortals to feed their own psychic powers and to amuse themselves, plenty of these Eldar have joined up with the Cobalts to take part in their fame, or were bested and swore allegiance to them. It’s rumoured that Vriska’s ancestor may have set the Dark Eldar on their current path and taught them their refined forms of cruelty and wickedness. In any case, Eldar-style technology forms the basis of the more refined technological aesthetic the Cobalts favor, up to ‘piloting’ giant robots by psychically attuning to them from a distance. A secret Dark Eldar ritual transforms someone into a giant fit to crush and demolish entire cities, and certainly Vriska and others like her will make use of it.

Ork Freebooters: hundreds of orks have pledged loyalty to the inner circle of the Cobalts, bringing with them a ton of looted weaponry, deadly war machines, and a lust for conquest most clearly marked in their leader, Captain Bluddflag.

Rogue Asari: A large portion of Asari, generally the Ardat-Yakshi who have had their condition selectively controlled by Vriska’s new powers, have joined as elite warrior and battlemages/living siege engines. They number hugely at this point, given new fertility despite their condition as a result of a bargain cut with the fleet, and make a good chunk of the Cobalt’s numbers. With them are their meat-shield thralls: bataarian soldiers, bangaa brutes, and a sizable army of those now claimed by them.

League of Villainy: Originally a group across many universes dedicated to organizing super villains and criminals with immense powers, supplying their organizations, helping them control their abilities, and perhaps coming to various agreements with society to allow them to take control and fulfill their various ambitions. Over time, with increasing cataclysms, the stability they required to do such things ceased to be, and they faded away but for a few pockets of civilization, and the Cobalts found them. Now comprising a large number of superpowered brutes, mad scientists, schemers, vengeance-addicted layabouts and many others united only in avarice and raw power, they joined the Cobalts, lured by greater promises of… less destructive nastiness. Their leader of a sort of a woman called Shego (of Kim Possible), who has mastered all the powers she could originally have in canon (destruction blasts, size shifting, super speed, super strength, self-cloning), her close friend and partner Giganta. Eobard Thawne is another leader and now an important technical advisor for the Inner Circle, and countless villains of a thousand worlds now answer to the Cobalts. (Imagine a comic book-style villain; if they’re not too evil, or not really team players, they can be here!)

Human Gangsters: At some point the Cobalts came upon a human criminal organization and promptly defeated it and absorbed it into their ranks; of these, its biggest leader, a modern outlaw named Elizabeth Caladonia Ashe (as from Overwatch), saw fit to convince her closest allies to join up with the new winning team. She’s brought in enough ships, firepower and connections to continue funding the Cobalts and give them influence they might otherwise not have. They even have access to old-school human war machines, giant mechs, and designs for destroyer-class ships, and a large assortment of combat-grade sapient robots who think this all sounds like a ton of fun.

Team Skull: Technically part of Ashe’s gang, but by communing with the strange entities called Pokemon, they’ve learned how to call upon them and bond with them, commanding them; they’re fairly moral influences within the Cobalts, in spite of their raw power, and it’s suggested their boss Guzma is going to make Inner Circle sooner or later.

Succubi: During an accident with a rift and a poorly timed summoning ritual, a little over a thousand spirits of desire and lust awere conjured into being from the influence of the Cobalts, assuming hyper-endowed and very curvaceous forms with the humans on the crew as a basis. Very magically powerful and charmed by their notions of desire in an abstract way, they are… if not loyal, at least bound to the Cobalts by uncertain aspects of their very existence. Incredibly powerful, they actually generate raw magic, empowering magic users in the Cobalts, and technically immortal; if slain, they reform a short while later on one of the pirate ships.

#/#//#///#////#//////#crossthicc AU

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themovingturtle-blog · 6 years

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10.13.18

A while ago, the film “The Secret” was recommended to me. I tried to read the book first, but a good friend told me that all the text in the book was taken verbatim from the movie. The movie actually precedes the film, which was released as a companion piece. I love to read, but given the choice between a two hour movie and several hours of reading, each with the exact same content, I chose the former.

To be frank, “The Secret” was not an easy film to watch.

“The Secret” was made in 2006 by Rhonda Byrne. The thesis statement of the movie is that a universal law called the Law of Attraction is what allows people to gain wealth and happiness in this world. By focusing their mental energies on something, be it a new car, a bigger house, or a promotion, a person can bring the object of their focus into their life.

The dated visual effects and corny monologues [all speech in the film comes either from an unseen narrator or various talking head “experts”] are forgivable. My biggest issue with “The Secret” is the air of insincerity and even dishonesty that seems to permeate the film.

This movie is quite good at implying things without directly stating them. The ideas that the film seeks to teach are implied to be some sort of ancient knowledge. The narrator often speaks over footage of various times and places throughout history. For the most part, the screens behind the talking heads portray sketches and scribblings reminiscent of Da Vinci's notebooks, further trying to lend an air of historicity and timelessness to the ideas they are selling. None of these places or events are explicitly connected to law of attraction, but they are put in the film for a reason. This method tries to give credibility to the ideas being taught without citing any actual experts. It's comparable to the advertising method of putting pictures of attractive women next to a product.

There are also vague allusions to the knowledge of the law of attraction being purposely kept hidden by a mysterious group of elites, hence the title of the film. However, it is never explained how Ms. Byrne or her daughter got a hold of this suppressed information. I would guess that the reason so many things are implied, rather than said, is that the filmmakers know that their claims are tenuous at best, if not outright false.

It's worth pointing out that the law of attraction can actually trace its roots to the teachings of Phineas Quimby and the New Thought movement of the late 19th century. Quimby taught that illness was caused by mental failings and that all diseases could be cured by properly believing in God.

Much of what the speakers in the film have to say seems to be pseudoscience and quantum mysticism. There are also frequent references to supposed facts and stories that are not properly sourced. These uncited sources are then used as an unquestionable foundation to explain the law of attraction. This is to say nothing of when the speakers make vague or even untrue statements. One that particularly stood out was Bob Proctor's comparison of electricity to the law of attraction. Basically, he says that no one understands what electricity is, but that we still manage to harness it. This borders on ridiculous. There are plenty of people who know exactly what electricity is and exactly how it works. They teach it in high school. That's how we are able to use it!

One of the speakers, a supposed quantum physicist, also throws out the "we only use ten percent of our brain" myth, implying that there is some kind of inactivated potential that the law of attraction may be connected to. This is purely an urban legend and has been refuted several times. Our conscious thoughts may only take up a small percentage of our brains functions, but a much larger percentage is devoted to unconscious tasks that keep our bodies functioning.

The main idea of “The Secret” is that "the universe" responds to our feelings and frequent thoughts by bringing the things we think about into our lives. Essentially, good things happen if you think about good things in a positive way and bad things happen if you think about bad things in a negative way.

This line of thinking puts the responsibility for one's happiness entirely on one's own shoulders. That's all well and good until you consider those whose lives are outside of their control. This film was marketed towards people who lead generally comfortable lives. They don't have to worry about where their next meal will come from. Immediate danger to life and limb is rare. Very few things are held back from them and opportunities abound. Their biggest hindrances in their lives are often mental blocks. Positivity and mindfulness are good tools to overcome these problems, even if they are discussed under pseudoscientific pretenses.

However, there are people throughout the world who suffer terrible fates regardless of their disposition. The soldier facing down enemy fire cannot wish his way out of a war. No amount of contemplation on a magical key will free the illegally imprisoned journalist. Who would dare tell the mother in Somalia as she watches her child die of malnutrition that what is happening is her fault because she wasn't happy enough in the preceding months?

According to “The Secret”, the way to know that you are "in tune" with "the universe" is to only do things that make you feel good. Good feelings are a natural signal to continue whatever you're up to. This bugs me for two reasons. One is that the film tries to distill and polarize the entire human experience into good and bad, as though there are no shades of grey in life. There are plenty of choices we make that may feel good in the moment but be looked back on with regret. There are also several actions that may be hurtful at the time but have positive effects in the long run, such as exercise or moving away from friends to pursue a new career.

My other concern is that the idea of good feelings being a natural affirmation seems to encourage hedonism and only acting on what makes one feel good in the moment. Speaking of hedonism, I also took issue with the film's focus on material wealth, specifically nice cars and big houses.

As a diehard Joseph Campbell fan, one of the most unforgivable sins of this movie, in my eyes, was the misrepresentation of his teachings. Towards the end of the film, a picture of Campbell appears next to one of his most famous quotes. “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”

When Campbell says to follow your bliss, he is referring to the idea of pursuing a path that stimulates your passions. Find a career and lifestyle that you care enough about to devote yourself to it entirely and make sacrifices for it. Following your bliss does not refer to embracing hedonism or doing whatever feels good in the moment. This quote began to be misinterpreted while Campbell was still alive. He is reported to have joked that he should change it to "Follow your blisters".

While I do think positivity and mindfulness are useful skills to cultivate, I wholeheartedly disagree with the way the movie attempts to sell them. It uses shaky sources and vague methods to assert its claims. It makes claims about universal laws but only considers a small portion of the human experience. While “The Secret” received tons of exposure and press attention in its day, it's not any different from any other half-baked self help movie.

Try These Songs

Author and Punisher - Terrorbird

Gehennah - Still the Elite

The Roots - Walk Alone

Tiberius Rising - Ookla the Mok

Hangar 18 - Megadeth

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bluewatsons · 6 years

Text

Ashley Tucker, Considering the Autobiographical ‘I’: Between Self-Narration and Fiction, Magnificat (April 2016)

The telling and retelling of one’s own story is a powerful experience, giving the voiceless a voice, granting authorial freedom, and offering a window into potentially untold stories. J.M. Coetzee’s and Charlotte Brontë’s first person narratives in Foeand Jane Eyre foreground female protagonists telling of their personal histories. Jane Eyre and Susan Barton represent the complexity of autobiography in demonstrating how sources outside of the women themselves have a dominant influence on the way that their stories are experienced, as well as the way that they are later retold. Jane’s story is driven by the oppression to which she responds. Susan’s tale is shaped by her attempt to convince Foe that she is “a bold adventuress” (Coetzee 45). Both fictional characters are left with the task of constructing their stories in such a way that evokes a desired response from their audience. In doing so, however, one of the challenges becomes presenting these stories with authenticity. This conflict arises not only in the isolated instances of these novels, but can be applied to a much greater context: the telling and retelling of all autobiography. Through a fictional platform, Jane Eyre and Susan Barton show that by allowing one the liberty to tell their truth, autobiography affords a narrator the opportunity to claim ownership of their story, develop self-awareness and identity, and provide a sense of concreteness to a series of experiences that at one time may have seemed unreal.

In its simplest form, an autobiography is when a person is narrating their own life story. In “The Veto of the Imagination,” Louis Renza expands on this definition and suggests that autobiography is “an indeterminate mixture of truth and fiction about the person writing it” (Renza 1). What both of these definitions fail to encompass, however, is the inevitable evolution that the author experiences by writing. In “Some Principles of Autobiography,” William Howarth goes even further to suggests that in producing an autobiography in the truest sense, one will undergo, “a spiritual experiment, a voyage of discovery” (Howarth 85). It is irresponsible to neglect this kind of unfolding when defining autobiography because it becomes equal to, or perhaps more significant than the story itself. Renza considers it to be a “‘literary’ event whose primary being resides in and through the writing itself: in the ‘life’ of the signifier as opposed to the life being signified” (Renza 1). What this suggests is that written autobiographical text reflects an outward expression which is only one component of the autobiographical experience. In the piece “Girl Talk: Jane Eyreand the Romance of Women’s Narration,” Carla Kaplan sees an autobiography, in Jane’s case, as “the story of the growth of a writer, someone who can extend the gesture – or invitation… of her own, assured voice to an unknown and unpredictable other (the reader)” (Kaplan 334). If one is to approve of Howarth’s notion that an autobiography functions as a self-portrait does, in the way that the artist and author “work from memory as well as sight, in two levels of time, on two planes of space, while reaching for those other dimensions, depth and the future” then one can also accept that both Jane and Susan are telling their stories in a way that can be classified as autobiography (Howarth 85).

Jane Eyre and Foe are similar because their authors present two women protagonists who manifest both a drive and a will to tell their unthinkable stories. They set up Jane and Susan as authors themselves. As stated in “Fictions of Autobiography,” “it is essential to reach some understanding of the state of mind that motivates autobiographical discourse in the first place” (Eakin 3). Brontë and Coetzee make a statement about autobiography as these characters raise questions about the parallel between function and form. The authors manipulate the way these stories are told which leaves the reader wondering what might happen when one tells their story one way rather than another. Through Jane’s assertive voice, the reader is given a clear interpretation of personal events. Different from Brontë, Coetzee uses Susan’s character to complicate stories themselves. Given the Postmodern context, Susan is depicted as an undermined female narrator and presents issues of power.

McLeod defines this issue of power as a fight for “who gets to establish and maintain the narrative framework and with who is going to seduce (and/or compel) whom into living inside his or her story world” (McLeod 3). This is significant because “to ‘narrate the world’ is to gain power and authority” (McLeod 3). Both protagonists endure this very power struggle. Jane finds other characters such as Mr. Rochester presenting interpretations of her own story. Kaplan references Mary Poovey who exposes Rochester’s tendency to “usurp Jane’s control over what is, after all, primarily her story” (Kaplan 14). St. John also attempts to kidnap Jane’s story when he says “I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator’s part, and converting you into a listener” (Brontë 438). Jane not only struggles to find a reasonable listener, but Kaplan suggests that she herself must “settle” to become the listener (Kaplan 15). She therefore battles to hold onto the “narrative framework” to which McLeod refers (McLeod 3).

Susan also wrangles with a conflict regarding ownership of narration. There is a clash between Susan and Foe, as Susan thinks of her story in one way, while Foe chooses to project it in another. Susan makes it very clear that she aims to tell a story as close to the truth as possible. She argues that “if I cannot come forward, as author, and swear to the truth of my tale, what will be the work of it?” (Coetzee 40). Foe, however, has a different agenda. He sets out to attract a mass audience and “cause a great stir,” even if it jeopardizes Susan’s “truth” (Coetzee 40). Though Susan firmly states that “[she] will not have any lies told,” ultimately she is dependent upon Foe. To begin, Susan relies on Foe because she doesn’t see herself as a born storyteller (Coetzee 81). Additionally, given the limitations of the patriarchal society in which Susan lives, the reality is that for her story to be heard, it must be projected through a man’s voice. In some ways, without Foe, Susan sees herself as “a being without substance” in the eyes of her reader (Coetzee 51). In the article “Reading History, Writing Heresy,” Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, however, track a progress in Susan’s dependency when they suggest “Susan moves from a position of sexual and hermeneutic dependency[…] to one of sexual and authorial independence” (Macaskill and Colleran 440-441).

In addition to this power struggle between the author and the other characters, there is also a tension between the author and the crafted “I.” Brontë and Coetzee demonstrate how autobiographical writing calls for the author to develop a sense of self-awareness and identity. As one works to tell their story, they must first establish a clear understanding of themselves. They are forced to see themselves as the primary character, and consider the way that they act and react within the greater context of the story. Eakin articulates this evolution in saying:

I view the rhythms of the autobiographical act recapitulating the fundamental rhythms of identity formation: in this sense the writing of autobiography emerges as a second acquisition of language, a second coming into being of self, a self-conscious self- consciousness. (Eakin 9)

So when considering the “I” of autobiography, the reader must make the distinction between the author and the character. Howarth identifies this relationship as the “artist and model” (Howarth 87). It is only possible for the narrator to present a replica of themselves for two primary reasons: the author is blinded by their perception of themselves and the story is told in retrospect, therefore after the events have come to some sort of conclusion. Howarth points out that the character the reader sees is “far different from the original model, resembling life but actually composed and framed as an artful invention” (Howarth 86). He goes on to identify an important dynamic about this author to character relationship. He explains that though the narrator may have more knowledge than the protagonist, “he remains faithful to the latter’s ignorance for the sake of credible suspense” (Howarth 87). Howarth also notes that these two individual characters “have to merge, as past approaches present, the protagonist’s deeds should begin to match his narrator’s thoughts,” which is particularly relevant to the development of identity (Howarth 87).

Although Jane demonstrates an evolution from a victimized child to a self-governing adult, the reader observes the poor perception that Jane has of herself. This is revealed in the way that Jane portrays her character. She is dependent upon the respect of others to fill the void of a lack of self-respect. She makes it clear that she desires “to earn respect and win affection” (Brontë 81). Although Jane is eventually able to claim “I care for myself,” it is evident that at the core she has a “wounded…self-esteem” (Brontë 365, 28). In addition to Jane’s direct assertions of her low self-esteem, it is revealed implicitly as well. There is a significant scene in which Jane does a series of paintings. As she compares the drawing of herself to the drawing of Rosamond Oliver she demonstrates a moment of class-consciousness. This instance, a mode of autobiography in itself, illustrates not only Jane’s self-awareness, but also her resistance to her social status. The reader watches as Jane grapples with why she is excluded from certain forms of life.

Susan’s self-perception becomes evident as well. As she tells her story to Foe it becomes clear she is on a desperate campaign for validation. She not only questions herself, but more importantly questions her story itself. Towards the end of the novel, she says “I am full of doubt. Nothing is left to me but doubt. I am doubt itself. Who is speaking me? Am I a phantom too? To what order do I belong?” (Coetzee 133). Susan, once strictly dedicated to presenting facts, now loses any sense of solidity. As she tells her story, and begins to develop self-awareness, it also becomes clear that she feels she lacks significance within it. Susan says, “when I reflect on my story I seem to exist only as the one who came, the one who witnessed, the one who longed to be gone: a being without substance, a ghost beside a true body of Cruso” (Coetzee 51). Susan fears that her place in her own story, and more broadly, her position on the island, has been minimized.

The women’s motivation for sharing their stories becomes significant when considering these identities. Eakin believes that “the impulse to write autobiography is but a special, heightened form of that reflective consciousness which is the distinctive feature of our human nature” (Eakin 9). Jane chooses to tell her story because she sees it as a way to take back the power which she had lost over time. In doing so, she owns it. She can orchestrate, for example, surrounding characters, most importantly her oppressors such as John Reed, Mrs. Reed, and Mr. Brockelhurst. They are “living inside [of Jane’s] story world” as McLeod describes it (McLeod 3). Jane proudly proclaims that she “will tell anybody who asks […] this exact tale” (Brontë 44). Kaplan identifies this statement, directed to Mrs. Reed, as the first time that the reader witnesses Jane’s self-narration (Kaplan 5). This moment is dynamic because of the light it sheds on Jane’s determination to release her story and her truth. The idea of authorship, even in this preliminary instance, caused Jane to feel as though her “soul began to expand, [and] to exult with the strangest sense of freedom [and] triumph” (Brontë 44). Susan has similar motives for sharing her story, as it also allows her the feeling of liberation. She makes the claim that “I am a free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire” (Coetzee 131). Coupled with Jane’s desire to emancipate herself and illustrate her own evolution, Jane also hopes to gain an audience that will justify her experiences. Jane, as Kaplan sees it, searches for a source to “credit her version of her life” (Kaplan 9).

Jane and Susan approach the telling of their stories in different ways. Though Jane insists that readers understand that it is “not a regular autobiography,” the novel traces a somewhat chronological account of her life events (Brontë 98). Her story offers a clear beginning, middle, and substantial conclusion. Her tight-knit relationship with her primary listener (the reader) is also significant. She addresses the reader directly, calling them by name. Howarth insists that these strategic stylistic decisions are significant because they “lead to larger effects like metaphor and tone” (Howarth 87). This portrays Jane’s authoritative voice. Additionally, this personal connection compels the reader to listen attentively with a greater degree of accountability. Susan, on the other hand, tells a story about stories. As she recounts the tale of the island, her narration is directed solely to Foe. Unlike Jane who engages her outside reader, Susan blocks them out. Perhaps Coetzee structured the narrative in this way to further reflect Susan’s insecurity. Susan searches for meaning and until she finds clarity (which she is never able to achieve) she can not include an outside reader in the way that Jane does.

The way that Brontë and Coetzee present a gendered story-telling style is also particularly noteworthy. Jane exercises her own right to tell her story. Much like her character, the way in which Jane tells her story breaks outside of the typical feminine narrative. In his article that observes the difference between male and female narration, James Krasner decides “men’s life stories describe either success or failure” (Krasner 114). Though Jane enumerates her tribulations, ultimately, her reflections represent her achievements. Her story is told in a way that appears complete. This style of storytelling matches the “linear” structure that Luce Irigaray associates with masculine writing in her work “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine” (Irigaray 797). She is direct, patterned, and comprehensible. Susan, however, represents a rejection of this linearity and serves as more of an exploration of sorts. Krasner contrasts the male oriented narrative when he describes women’s narratives as “manifestly fictional; their stories describe the construction of fictions” (Krasner 114). Susan does not achieve Jane’s same completeness considering, even in the final pages of the novel, Susan proclaims to be “doubt itself” (Coetzee 133). Her construction fits into the “fluid” state that Irigaray associates with feminine writing, and models the way that “its ‘style’ resists and explodes every firmly established form, figure, idea or concept” (Irigaray 797). This fluid narrative technique is represented literally at the end of the book. Susan presents images of water and describes the “slow stream” that “flows” from Friday’s mouth (Coetzee 157). “Petals floating around me like a rain of snowflakes” is another image of fluidity that contrasts Jane’s images of concreteness (Coetzee 156).

Through their storytelling they begin to create something clear and permanent. Susan describes this concreteness as “a substantial body” (Coetzee 53). In many ways, the women encountered unspeakable circumstances. Once they account their experiences for the characters themselves, the stories become real. The effort to recall events, account for them in chronological order, and identify their meaning can serve as therapeutic as the mind tries to come to grips with a life narrative. In the work, “Narrating From the Margins: Self-representation of Female and Colonial Subjectivities in Jean Rhys’s Novels,” Nagilhan Haliloğlu explains how “the need to order past and future events […] to account for the passage of time by recounting past events, is an impulse people give in to by means of narrative” (Haliloğlu 14). Finally, and perhaps most relevant, the women write their stories because by doing so they are not only rewriting a series of events, they are also rewriting themselves, which forces them to craft their own identity. Haliloğlu touches upon John Shotter’s argument that says, “What we talk of as our experience of our reality is constituted for us very largely by the already established ways in which we must talk in our attempts to account for ourselves” (Haliloğlu 15-16).

These motivations become crucial because they play a role in the authenticity of autobiography, an element that must be questioned on several accounts. In many ways, the audience unconsciously shapes the nature of an autobiography. The author writes them in mind, again, remembering that they are creating an “artful invention” (Howarth 86). Howarth says that narrators tend to “obey the dictates of audiences, whose responses justify their craft” (Howarth 98). Susan realizes that autobiography “must not only tell the truth about us but please its readers too” (Coetzee 63). She emphasizes McLeod’s idea of seduction when she says that we use our tongues as an instrument to “jest and lie and seduce” (Coetzee 85). Authors of all narratives to some degree set out to manipulate the reader.

The unreliability of memory organically contributes to the failure of accuracy as well. Susan even suggests “the secret meaning of the word story [might be] a storing-place of memories” (Coetzee 59). The women must rely on their memories, which Howarth names as one of the “essential controls” of autobiography, to convey their stories because these narratives are being told in hindsight (Howarth 86). Jane describes her memory as “not naturally tenacious” (Brontë 88). Despite this, memory (and some degree of imagination) is essentially their only resource. Memory becomes significant because as Susan suggests, “the secret meaning of the word story [might be] a storing-place of memories” (Coetzee 59). Authors then must fill in certain gaps to create completeness. Renza sees autobiography as more of an “imaginative” rather than “descriptive” outlet of writing (Renza 4).

What matters here is not the undoubtable sense that the author’s memory is often undependable, but rather to what degree these women are exercising selective memory. The narrators omit parts of their story, not always because they do not remember, but because they opt not to share. In “Speech and Silence in Jane Eyre” Janet H. Freeman identifies Jane’s narrative as “only [a partial version] of the complex narrative” (Freeman 685). Susan is willing to claim these empty spaces when she declares “I choose not to tell it because to no one […] do I owe proof that I am a substantial being with a substantial history in the world” (Coetzee 131).

As readers of autobiography, either fictional or otherwise, there is an ethical responsibility that lies within one’s interpretation. Accepting the genre of autobiography in a way that one would any other story, readers must keep in mind the claims made by J. Hills Miller’s piece, “The Ethics of Reading,” which argues that “stories contain the thematic dramatization of ethical situations, choices, and judgments” (Miller 3). It is therefore the reader’s duty to interpret these three defining elements in a way that allows them to connect to a larger message beyond the characters themselves. It becomes more productive to search for meaning opposed to truth. Ultimately, it is not the who, what, when, and where of Jane’s and Susan’s story that will lend the reader substance, but instead the why. MacLeod points that the fulfillment of the novel comes into play when “the discourse of the novel overrides ‘the truth’ or our actual experiences and we begin to feel and see things according to the framework the book posits even when we aren’t reading it, even between readings” (MacLeod 8).

In an attempt to find a resolution, Renza poses the question:

Must we settle […] for the compromising, commonplace, conception that depicts autobiography as a formal mutation, a hybrid genre, a vague, unresolved mixture of “truth” about the autobiographer’s life dyed into the colors of an ersatz, imaginative “design?” (Renza 5)

To insist as readers upon the truth, one robs the narrator authorial freedom. It takes away the author’s truth which is the very element that classifies the story as autobiography. To elicit this “proof” that Susan refers to is to undermine not only the accuracy of the events, but more importantly the meaning behind these stories. The question then becomes, is an entirely “authentic” autobiography even practical?

Krasner suggests that it is an unrealistic request when he poses the question “in a world of such chaotic inconsistency, in which desire, perspective, and comprehension change from moment to moment, is it possible to write a consistent personal history?” (Krasner 116). The answer is in fact, no. Instead of insisting, however, Freeman asks the reader to evoke it. It is our responsibility as readers to be active listeners. In doing so, we must receive these personal histories. She says that as the audience, “only, our presence, listening, can endorse… truth-telling” (Freeman 700). She goes on to say that “for…[the] truth to be fully told, we are the ones who must hear it” (Freeman 700).

Brontë and Coetzee set up Jane and Susan as authors of their own narratives to show the power behind autobiography. Though Jane and Susan are fictional characters, it is fair to speak of them in real terms because of the way they represent larger real-life significance. They echo the power behind self-narration in demonstrating the personal evolution that it evokes. To tell one’s own story is to tell one’s truth. How this truth is conveyed is primarily dependent on one’s motivations and desired outcomes. The narrator is robbed of their authorial freedom, the very driving point of autobiography, when the reader challenges their truth. It is the reader’s responsibility to be aware of this lack of authenticity, yet accept these versions. In doing so, one will truly be able to welcome autobiography as “a work of art and life… [that] defines, restricts, [and] shapes [a] life into a self-portrait” (Howarth 86).

Works Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics, 2006. Print.

Case, A. A. (1992). Writing the Female ‘I’: Gender and Narration in the 18th- and 19th- Century English Novel. Web.

Coetzee, J. M. Foe. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986. Print.

Freeman, Janet H. “Speech and Silence in Jane Eyre.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900. 24.4 (1984): 683-700. JSTOR. Web.

Howarth, William L. “Some Principles of Autobiography.” New Literary History 5.2 (1974): 363-81. JSTOR. Web.

Irigaray, Luce, and Margaret Whitford. The Irigaray Reader. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Print.

Kaplan, Carla. “Girl Talk: Jane Eyre and the Romance of Women’s Narration.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 30.1 (1996): 5-31. JSTOR. Web.

Krasner, James. “The Life of Women: Zora Neale Hurston and Female Autobiography.” Black American Literature Forum 23.1 (1989): 113-26. JSTOR. Web.

Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran. “Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe”. Contemporary Literature 33.3 (1992): 432–457. Web.

MacLeod, Lewis. “‘Do We of Necessity Become Puppets in a Story?’ Or, narrating the World: On Speech, Silence, and Discourse in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe.” Modern Fiction Studies 52.1 (2006): 1,18,259. ProQuest. Web.

Miller, J.H. “Reading Doing Reading.” The Ethics of Reading. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. 1-11. Print.

Renza, Louis A. “The Veto of the Imagination: A Theory of Autobiography.” New Literary History 9.1 (1977): 1-26. JSTOR. Web.

#autobiography #memoir #literature #perspective #self-perception #identity #nonfiction #truth #narration

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moonbelt · 7 years

Text

»kaleidoscope

↳soulmate au | baseball player au

⇢ pairing: park jinyoung | reader

⇢ genre: fluff + soft angst

⇢ word count: 7.227

author’s note: born out of this anon request and the unbecoming amount of love i have for soulmate aus lmaoo

It's a cold, dark and windy day in the middle of April when you first see through the eyes of someone else.

Cold weather, although comfy when in sweatshirts and cardigans, isn't your favorite thing in the world, and given your luck, the weather isn't the only thing that has been slowly creeping up your skin. Your boyfriend — ex now — had given you the whole breakup speech a day before. The usual "it's not you, it's me," as he slid his fingers into the ones of his newly found soul mate. You don't intend to sound like a broken record to your posse of friends, but you find yourself repeating the same words every ten minutes.

"Fuck soulmates."

Your closest friend, Althea, laughs at your statement but doesn't try to talk you out of your self-indulgent mourning. You'll be honest, you don't hate the concept of soulmates but you do despise how quickly Nathan had dropped you; like hot coal. With a flick of his wrist, you were gone and replaced by Mr. Nice Guy. You didn't bother to remember Nathan's soulmate's name, why would you? You'd thought you and Nathan were forever. As it turns out, forever only lasts a year and six months. A whole year and a half of Nathan and you asserting that having soulmates 'didn't matter in the grand schemes of life.' Now you realize, that had all been wishful thinking and the height of naiveté.

Grabbing the nearest bottle of soda, you crack open the lid and down half of it in one gulp, pretending it's something stronger. You're on a mission to not drink any alcohol because of him. And even though your chest is a mass of emotions and broken promises, you figure you'd rather die than give Nathan the satisfaction of crying over him. Not that he'd care. He doesn't seem to care for you at all anymore and you're on track to doing the same.

Finding your soulmate is supposed to be a heartwarming experience. Colored by streams of light and love, something you'll tell everyone you know - and the people you don't - because you finally found the one made for you. You understand that you're being a tad cynical but, what happens to the person who was left behind? What happens to you? The glitch in the equation. Do your feelings suddenly, by some sort of miracle, become invalid? Because at this moment, you are sure there's nothing worse than feeling like discarded leftovers.

It wasn't like you didn't know the both of you had soulmates lounging around and about out there in the world. You knew this. But you'd thought it had no effect on your connection. It's not like you'd ever met your soulmate before to have something to compare your relationship to. Nathan himself had called you his one and only love, proclaiming to the heavens and back how he was willing to fight for you. You scoff. All his words, about how the soulmate business didn't faze him, coming to bite you in the ass.

Soulmate or not, the two of you had loved each other. Or at least you loved him. And now you were trying to un-love him all on your own.

"You know what we should do?" BamBam, who originally was a distant friend of a friend but nuzzled his way into your group, perks up in his seat. "Ditch this dump and head to Club Medusa. I swear you'll forget Nathan even existed within ten minutes."

"I'd rather spare my lungs Bam," you say rolling your eyes as you kick your head back and stare at the fluorescent overhead lights.

The fast-food joint you and your group of friends are currently inhabiting is a newly established one. Freshly opened and with zero regular customers, which in turn made it one of your favorite places. You'd rather be here than in a club where personal space was akin to the devil.

Althea reaches over with her boot-clad foot and nudges your knee, dragging your attention back to her. Her face is pressed against her palm as she leans on the table's surface, a look of pity painted across her features.

"If it makes you feel any better, you're lucky he found his soulmate now and not later down the line. I mean, imagine if he left you at the altar? God, or worse if he —"

BamBam hits her arm... hard, effectively cutting your best friend off. "You are not helping. Like at all. Let me handle this, okay?" He angles his body back at you. "[y/n], believe me when I say anything," he flashes a pointed look at Althea. "Beats eating burger and fries — alone — after a breakup."

"I'm not alone. I have you guys," you say feigning ignorance, raising your hands to your chest and bowing them into a heart. "I love you guys."

Althea snorts out in laughter while Bambam shakes his head in bemusement. You really do love them, honest, more than you bargained for. Platonic soulmates are something you're glad to believe in, especially now that your friends haven't ditched you even with all your moping and sulking.

At the back of your mind, however, you acknowledge BamBam's logic. It does suck to eat junk food after a breakup but rationally, you think Althea is kind of right. You are somewhat lucky that Nathan and you called it quits before things got too serious. Even though almost two years in most relationships would be considered pretty damn serious. You thought it was serious, apparently, Nathan had not. Besides, you're trying to look at the bright side of the situation and not resort to crying your heart out in a near-empty restaurant. So just to prove a point, you reach over and stuff your mouth with a handful of fries.

Fast food might not be the answer but you sure as hell are going to make it work.

BamBam swats your hand away when you try to grab another set of fries, going on another rave about how Club Medusa is the shit. You know it's just another excuse for him to go on a dabbing spree in the cloak of darkness and an intoxicated crowd. You're about to tell him off for the umpteenth time that night; you are most definitely not getting drunk off your ass just because you got dumped. You're not that pathetic, you think. However, before you can get the words past your lips, a wave of nausea inflames your senses.

It floods over you so quickly that you don’t have time to register what’s happening as your vision darkens to pitch black. When it relights, it's to a completely different view.

Loud cheering and even louder panting usher you in. It feels... like your chest is about to implode in on itself, sweat relentlessly pooling at your armpits. You've never felt such an adrenaline rush before. Sure, you've done a few workout routines here and there but this felt oddly contrasting and for a moment your body freezes up, clutching the only thing in your hand for support. Which so happens to be a bat? But even with the peculiar item, you strangely feel at ease. Safe. Like you've done this a thousand times before even though you're positive you have not. Still, more than anything, you're confused by your situation. And when you raise your head in an attempt to determine your surroundings, you almost lose your footing.

Maybe it's due to the feeling of unfamiliarity that seeps into your bones once your eyes connect with what's ahead of you, or maybe it's because your heart has faulted in its beating, but you suddenly can't breathe.

Large expanses of sand and neatly cut grass lay onward. There's a distinct cheer that filters through your ears. "Jinyoung. Park. Jinyoung. Park." It's loud. It's deafening. And it is taking up all the space left in the stadium. Contrary to what you think, it gives you an unusual sense of calm? But in spite of that, you can't stop the one question relaying in your mind: what the fuck is going on?

Your eyes connect with the man directly in your line of sight. Posture prickly straight with a cap sitting low on his head. Blue uniform loose yet fitting against his form, and a gloved hand dangerously close to his chest. The urge to scream in fear is daunting. What, the ever-loving-fuck, is going on? You have absolutely no idea. You vaguely remember that it resembles the dreams you used to have as a kid. Back in a time when you placed baseball players on a high pedestal, aspiring to be a professional later in life. Reality came in a hard dose of ridiculous hand-eye coordination and your father urging you to quit early to prevent catastrophic injuries.

Faster than light, the man in blue whips his arm back, his leg positioned slightly ajar as he releases the ball. Your eyes barely follow the white baseball that comes flying straight at you. On impulse, you're prepared to swing at it with all your pent-up frustrations. But just as fast as you were dragged away from your world, you are ruefully brought back. Clasping your chest like your life depends on it, a sheen of heavy sweat lining your forehead and brows, eyes wide as you wait for the ball to connect with — hopefully — not your face.

"Holy shit," you manage to stutter out long after the sensation has come and gone. Your heart took its time with catching itself back in place. Your friends don't seem to have noticed your out-of-body experience. Instead, their bickering is the only thing that remains constant.

BamBam is shooting Althea an unimpressed look as he draws his words out dryly. "All I'm saying is, [y/n] needs a break from relationships. Don't set up some stupid blind date and think you're doing the Lords work because I can assure you, you are not."

"This has absolutely nothing to do with you!" She exclaims incredulously, flipping her hair to the side. "[y/n] loves my blind dates, don't you [y/n]?" Althea cocks an expectant eyebrow at you, waiting for your input.

"Holy shit! Holy freaking shit!" You say instead with a voice louder than before, toppling over your chair in a bid to stand up and pace the adrenaline away. "Oh, my fucking gosh. D-did you guys see what j-just happened?"

"Um... no?" Bam's concerned gaze flicks incessantly between you and Althea like maybe the two of you are telepathic and are holding out on him. "Why are we freaking out? I want to know why we're freaking out. I can't freak out if I don't know what happened!"

"I-I just saw something. Or at least... I think I did."

Althea squints her eyes at you not exactly confident on where you're going with this, but nevertheless, she rises to her full height and clamps two calming hands on your shoulders.

"Deep breaths [y/n]. In out, in out. Whatever it is, it can't be worse than Nathan dumping you for Mr. Nice Guy —"

"Althea!" BamBam's exasperated voice booms out as he throws his arms up in the air. "Don't bring up that asshole, not now—"

You cut the conversation short. "I think I just connected with my soulmate," your voice reverts back to whispering. It's a miracle that Bambam can even hear you. "I mean, I'm not sure... but I'm positive I just saw a snippet from their life or something. Again, not sure about this, but I swear I'm not making this up I—"

"What?!" Althea cuts you off, her eyes widening in disbelief but also curiosity. All of you seem to be cutting each other off today. "You're not shitting us, are you?"

Amidst the pounding of your heart, you relax at her facial expression. "Do I look like I'm shitting on you right now? This has never happened before. Does this mean what I think it means or am I being delusional?" You look to Bambam for support.

He shrugs his shoulders in astonishment. "Why are you looking at me?! I've never met a rare before."

Soulmates — no matter how commonplace they've become over the decades and with the advancement of science, are still an enigma to the world. Why do they exist? How did they suddenly come into being? And most importantly, in what forms do people find them?

The most common had to be the name business. Finely printed letters across wrists, something you never got even after clocking seventeen. Closely after that came Soul marking — in which you only know your soulmate by touching them and getting a peculiar mark from them in that area. Add that to the never-ending list of stuff you've never experienced. But then there's the ultimate rarity, God tier level if you will, instances where people suddenly could see through their soul mates eyes; snippets that barely lasted four minutes.

You'd read countless work about them in your high school Advanced History class, some fabled and some rumored to be true, but not once did you think you would be the one experiencing it.

Terrifying yet thrilling at the same time.

"Do you know how amazing this is?" Althea is bouncing up and down, her arms caging you in a hug. "Loser Nathan can suck it. Your soulmate exists!"

Bambam quickly gets the memo and wraps his hands around the two of you, cementing your bond closer. You're still in a daze as your mind grasps the implication of what happened. You don't know if it is right to feel as elevated as you do.

Twenty-four hours ago, you had a relationship and although that has since become dust, you can't help the little attachment tying around your heart. What if your soulmate already has someone? Someone who is obviously not the one the universe wants for them, but someone nonetheless. What if they don't pull a Nathan and dump their significant other? What if they genuinely love them? More than they love a practical stranger at least. What if —

"This is a cause for celebration, isn't it?" Bambam shoots you a shit-eating grin as he releases his grip on you. "There's no reason why we can't hit Club Medusa —"

"I agree!" Althea nods her head adamantly, long hair falling across her shoulders.

You try, a little, to pay attention to the excitement of your friends but it proves to be a feeble attempt. Your mind - and heart - can't stop racing. It feels like you've flown closer to the sun, electricity flowing through your veins, lighting everything in sight. And even though you're sort of scared of how weightless you feel, you don't want to ever let this feeling go. You still have insecurities plaguing your mind, probably won't cease just because you want them to. But like before, you decide to only look at the bright side of the situation. At long last, the Universe is getting on your side and you're not stupid enough to jinx it with negative thoughts.

Soulmates might not be the end all and be all of the world, but you'd rather not spend the rest of your life wondering about the might-have-beens. At least for today, you vow to revel in this sensation, like everything is finally right.

Soon after, you find yourself leading your trio to Club Medusa, thoughts of your ex-banished to all hell and replaced by thoughts of the person with the bat. Two words piercing through your thoughts consistently. For reasons you don't understand, you get inexplicably lightheaded from them.

Park Jinyoung.

It has a nice ring to it, you think. Comparable to how you believe hitting a home run would feel like. Exhilarating; like you're gliding on ice and nothing can stop you. Not even death. Maybe it applies almost exclusively to death? As if this feeling won't ever stop, regardless if time passes.

It scares you. After all, almost every fairy tale you know of was spawned out of tragedy. And you're not stupid enough to believe completely in things you can't see. But for all that you do believe in, you want to trust this feeling.

Not to sound philosophical or anything like that, but life is all about moments. Moments before life, moments during life and moments afterlife. And no matter how coincidental you believe a situation to be, it most likely wasn't accidental or simply by chance. It comes as no surprise to you then that you find yourself repeating this mantra to yourself, more often than not, over the next few days since the incident.

You haven't experienced a really out of tuned snippet like the one you had back at the fast food restaurant. In fact, since then all you'd had were dizzy spells. Instances where you could taste something when you weren't eating. Or when you closed your eyes to doze for a bit, you'd wake up disoriented with the feeling of being in a body that is not yours. This happened for two weeks. Two weeks of you almost feeling your soulmate but not.

To be quite frank, you never thought you'd be one of those people. You know, the ones who become obsessed — to the point of borderline insanity — over their soulmates. Ergo Nathan. Okay, maybe you're still holding a slight grudge against him but it's not like you're a saint. Or want to be. And it's not like you want to relentlessly think about your soulmate, but for the life of you, your brain seems adamant on not listening to any of your demands.

Like right now, as you filter through the orders of the day. Working at the only on-campus coffee shop/bakery was quickly proving itself to be a bad decision. You work the late evening shift and half the time it was scarce, a big difference compared to most afternoons where orders were constantly flooding in.

The only downside of not having enough orders to occupy your body was that your mind was consistently straying away from the present. Weaving vivid descriptions of your soulmate. How tall would they be? How loud did they laugh? What kind of things did they do for fun? You're so far gone in your thoughts that you don't realize a new group of customers have walked into the store. In fact, you don't return to the present until one of them, a lean and tall yellow-haired boy, clears his throat loudly.

Your shoulders jump back, startled. It's a group of six boys all in white baseball uniforms and even though you consider yourself pretty tall, they tower over your height as they make their way to the back of the store where the speakers are located. They barely give you any attention, instead, they leave Blondie to handle their orders.

The blonde boy who winks at you, like maybe you're taken aback by his admittedly unabashed beauty and not the intrusion of your personal space. You manage to awkwardly offer him a smile, your eyes scanning the pack that has now settled in a corner booth.

Usually, you worked your shift alongside Yuri, a Nursing major, but due to unforeseen circumstances, she had to check out early. Yuri was the one that dealt with the jocks, for a lack of a better term. Not that you had anything against the athletics department, you'd just rather not put yourself in a situation to interact with them. Your view on them may have been slightly tainted due to experiences in high school. But life was all about moments, you tell yourself, and right now you're trying to get past the faint lingering smell of sweat and dirt.

"What can I get for you today?" You try to put a pep in your voice but it falls flat.

"Can I have, uh, you?" he replies with an unexpected grin on his face. Like he knows how cringe and unreasonable he's being but is engaging you in his humor. You roll your eyes at him.

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that and spare both of us the embarrassment, okay?" You say, not really expecting an answer from him but still offering him a cocky smile regardless. The store is CCTV protected and your manager will bust a vein if he found you being slightly ominous to any customer, even if you had a right to it. "Is there anything else you and your buddies want to order this fine evening?"

He doesn't seem at all fazed by the sarcasm dripping from your voice, if anything, his cheeks expand even more. "I like you; you're funny." Blondie casually remarks before he narrates his and his teammates' orders. He gets through five orders before he draws a blank, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he turns around and gets the attention of his friends.

"Jinyoung, what’s the order for today?"

Your eyes follow to where the other boys are situated and fall on the boy in question. A dark baseball cap sitting on his head, his eyes tear away from his phone and focus on Blondie and you. His voice comes out low and serene but at the same time loud enough to travel the path to your ears. You fumble a little with ringing up the total and Blondie snickers when you finally hand him the receipt. He sends you another wink, this time more playful than flirty before he makes his way over to his friends.

As you work your way through the requests, you wonder what's up with your luck these days. First, you get the scare of your lifetime by being thrown into a baseball game mid-pitch and now you're coming face to face with a pack of baseball players. Just your luck that the only name you can remember from the snippet is Park Jinyoung.

You found out over the course of the past two weeks, that Park and Jinyoung were among common names that came in the same package. Or at least common enough for you to be in class with four other namesakes. The only reassurance you had was that you were positive that if you ever came in contact with the Jinyoung from back then, you would know.

You also know not to get your hopes up. There probably is more than one Jinyoung in your university's baseball team. Moreover, you're not sure which baseball team your soulmate even plays for. It could be the university a few towns over, it could be pro-league... in fact now that you really thought about it, it could be any team on the planet. Well, aren't you fucked? You think to yourself solemnly.

You're so distracted by your thoughts that you almost burn your hand under hot water, but even then, your thoughts don't stop twisting and turning around in your head.

It takes longer than usual but once you complete their full order, you look up to grab the attention of Blondie but you're met with Jinyoung's intent gaze instead. It's not quite daunting but at the same time, it doesn't put your heart at ease. Head cocked to the side and his lower lip threatening to crack between his teeth; he looks like he's desperately trying to glue pieces of something together.

You raise your hand to wave him over and in an instant, he's standing to his full height and walking over to you. You'd naively thought that he would've sent Blondie to do the deed instead, this Jinyoung didn't strike you as someone that liked communicating with people unless he absolutely had to. You guessed wrong.

He takes long strides to the cashier and you try not to stare as he does so but your eyes have other plans. He has a boyish yet manly vibe to him, and even though he looks stoic in appearance, now that he's come close, you can see how his eyes differ. They hold something akin to warmth and you find yourself staring into them longer than necessary. Today just isn't your day, you tell yourself to justify how weird you've been acting. You do not ogle boys in the cafe. You simply don't.

"Thanks," he says, grabbing two of the trays. "I hope Yugyeom didn't weird you out? He does that a lot... sorry."

Not expecting him to apologize for his friends' antics, words die in your throat but you force a chuckle out of your lips at best, you refuse to be on the same level as a mannequin.

Jinyoung nods his head as if your laughter is a good enough response. The corners of his lips tilt up before he's hauling his way back to his pack and you finally let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding. Christ, since when did you get so weak? It wasn't like this was the first attractive person you'd ever met. Get it together! Your soulmate was out there. Probably a few thousand miles away, but out there nonetheless!

You flip your notepad to a new blank page and proceed to doodle on it. Little trees sprouting from the corners and swirling lines outlining the borders but soon enough you find yourself lettering Park Jinyoung along with those as well. You don't even know if this name belongs to your soulmate. You're relying on trial and error and now that you're thinking about Jinyoung, your eyes flick up and lock in on him.

You wonder if he's your soulmate. Probably not, but you wonder regardless. How would you know? It's not like the heavens are going to split open and a white dove will appear above his head. He isn't Jesus, you reckon, and you aren't either. You're about to disregard thoughts of him from your mind when you feel a familiar sensation wash over you.

Gripping the corners of the table you try to anchor yourself. It's a futile attempt because in an instant you lose your sight and by the time you regain it, you already know you've parted with your body.

The chatter is annoyingly loud, most likely because you've been thrown in the midst of it. To your sides sit boys on a baseball team. You're not as surprised as you ought to be when your vision connects with Blondie — Yugyeom. He's making a joke about hitting a home run and one of them, the loudest besides Yugyeom, laughs maniacally at that.

Your body freezes up as your eyes drift over and count how many of the boys you can see. Five. Five and none of them are Jinyoung. You can tell someone is drilling holes into you; desperate to grab your attention so you quickly raise your head. Well, if you're being technical, it's not your head. But that's easily understandable.

It's weird and honestly terrifying to see your own body looking at you. Not the same as looking at yourself in a mirror but not completely different either. Eyes wide and a tad bit glassy stare back at you in shock. A shock that you're sure is mirrored in your borrowed pair of eyes. You sit there staring at each other for what seems like hours until you're dragged out of your reverie by one of the boys tapping your shoulder.

"How do you feel about sporks?"

"Huh?" Your voice comes out deeper than you know and it shakes you to your core.

"Dude," the black-haired boy with a perpetual smile on his face, rolls his eyes. "Aren't you listening? Sporks, you know those things that double as forks and spoons?"

One of his friends rubs his hands against his face as he sighs out, exasperatedly. "Sporks are not a thing, Jackson. Jesus Christ, no one calls them that."

Jackson seems highly offended by the statement. "What do you mean? Everyone calls them that! You're so —"

You don't get to hear the ending of his rant. Jackson and the loudness of the table fade to distant chatter in an instant as you return to your rightful place. Damn, you don't think you'll ever get used to this. What are you supposed to do now? You'd thought finding your soulmate will automatically put things in perspective. But right now, as you barely stand at the back of the cashier and peer over at him, you can confidently say that nothing makes any sense.

It's not like you can walk up to him and demand the two of you run into the sunset together. Okay maybe that's a little extreme but that's pretty much what Nathan did if your memory serves you correctly. You can't really do much with this situation, truly. You don't want to introduce yourself to him in front of his teammates, imagining the looks on their faces already did the honors of turning your feet cold.

"Ah," you sigh out to yourself.

Maybe you should sneak him your phone number? No, no, no! Abort! Your brain waves a red flag. Not only is that the cliché of clichés, you are assertive the napkin will find its end in a nearby dumpster and not his contact list like you want.

You nibble on your bottom lip, deep in thought. None of the stories that you'd read prepared you for this moment. They'd all ended with the two soulmates [tearfully] acknowledging each other. Bells ringing in the distance and love blooming in their eyes. You snort. What a fucking joke. This is awkward. Awkward as fucking hell. And you have no idea how you are supposed to break the ice. Perhaps ask him about his take on sporks?

Maybe you should just wing it? And see how it goes? If the stars are bent on putting the two of you together, it shouldn't matter if you embarrass yourself a few times... right? Before you come to a conclusion on the matter, you hear scraping of seats and the thudding sounds of sneakers hitting the floor as the one group you've been avoiding eye contact with, gets up and begins trudging out.

"See you around sweetheart," Blondie calls out, winking as he does. "Maybe next time I'll win you over with my amazing skills?"

No, you think, but you're too distracted with trying to discreetly watch Jinyoung as his friends drag him out. He seems out of place, his body being pushed against his will. He looks at you like he wants to say something but then decides against it. You open your mouth to... call out to him? You're not sure. But you end up closing your mouth remorsefully, as the door to the store swings shut.

Well, there goes chance number one. If your luck was anything to go by, you probably wouldn't meet him again for weeks. You could always religiously jog past the baseball teams’ practice field but you figure that will turn out really creepy really fast.

Busying yourself with your closing routine, you quickly buzz through wiping tables and accounting everything for what they're worth. In the back of your mind though, you think about Jinyoung. How he looks without that cap shadowing his face. If he ever won that game. If he has any idea how the two of you are supposed to connect. If he can honestly feel the low strumming of wires been set ablaze under your skin, or maybe it's just you.

Once you've finished everything that needs to be done in the store, you lock up and make your way out of the university center. The time on your watch reads 10:12 and you wonder if you'll be able to make the last bus to your dorm across campus. Your boots crunch dirt under your path and you tighten your hoodie closer to your skin. It's awfully cold for April but you don't question the weather.

The weirdest thing you've come to understand about the soulmate euphoria is that no matter how life-altering or intense a feeling like that continues on for, so long as it happens within the constraints of your mind, nobody else knows.

Your skin might sheen over with sweat, your mind buzzing with incoherent words but nobody else in the world knows what's going on and sometimes not even you.

"Are you following me?" Your voice comes out tentative because what if you're wrong? Oh, the embarrassment.

There's a ruffle somewhere behind you and then a pair of white shoes come to a halt beside you. Two forceful coughs later comes out his reply.

"I wasn't following you, honest. I was looking at the moon."

"Why do I feel like you're lying?"

He shrugs, not bothered. "Do you usually accuse everyone you meet? Or is this a thing reserved for me?"

You decide to not answer. Instead, you pick up the pace and continue the walk to the bus stop. In five minutes the bus is going to vamoose out and you're going to be left with no other option than walking back home. It wasn't the worst, but it certainly wasn't the best or fastest.

It doesn't take him that much effort to catch up to you. In fact, you're afraid he barely has to huff out a breath to reach you.

"Hey, wait. Are you ignoring me? Did I do something wrong?"

You steel yourself from sparing him a glance. "No, it's not you per se. But the bus waits for no one and I hate walking."

"Really? I like walking. Feels good. Also, you use the bus?"

"You do play baseball, it'll be more of a shocker if you didn't." You say finally looking at him. Nervous energy emits from him, his fingers wringing around one another repeatedly. "Cars are expensive and well, buses are cool... kinda."

There's no plausible reason why the two of you are engaging in this conversation other than the fact that you're both trying to break the ice.

"So," you make an attempt, the butterflies in your stomach making house. "Do you usually come to the cafe? I've never seen you there before."

He shakes his head. "First time. I lost a bet and Yugyeom wouldn't stand for me chickening out."

"What, you're too good for coffee or something?" You hope there's a joking tint in your voice because you're not being snobby, you're trying to joke around. Oh God, no one ever prepared you for this.

Luckily, he understands and he laughs aloud. Your heart calms down at this, you feel strangely accomplished.

"I hate coffee but since I lost, I didn't really have a say."

"What bet did you lose?"

He bites his tongue in uncertainty and you wonder if it was okay for you to ask. The two of you haven't even exchanged names and you're already prying. You feel your body heating up, for more reasons than one. You're ready to tell him that it doesn't matter when he says:

"I got struck out by the pitcher in my last game. I told the guys that I was gonna hit a home run but uh, you know that thing happened and..." his voice trails off.

You add two and two together, not like it was any hard. You had totally missed that swing that time. Damn, as if it wasn't enough that you'd went and lost, you'd also helped him lose a bet? This soulmate thing was supposed to be o' so rosy and beautiful, wasn't it? You are beyond mortified and the only thing saving you is that you've arrived at the bus stop.

However, the last bus is nowhere to be seen and your heart sinks into your chest as you turn around to face Jinyoung.

"I'm so sorry,” you focus your eyes on his nose. “I really thought I had that. Is there a way I can make it up to you?"

He waves away your apology with his hand. "It's no big deal. I mean it's not like either of us had it coming, plus you must have been terrified. That guy has one of the fastest pitches in the bracket. I was surprised I didn't walk out with a black eye."

"That bad?"

Jinyoung nods solemnly but the light in his eyes eases the elephant stomping on your chest. "Don't sweat it. Anyways," he takes a look around. "I don't think your bus is still here."

He is right. Just thinking about the ten-minute walk to your dorm is enough to put a damper on your mood. It sucks but it's what you get for being so absentminded all day. One good thing came from this though... and he was standing right in front you.

"Seems like I'll be walking. How about you? Are you heading straight?" Even though you want to continue talking to him [you feel like you could listen to his voice for forever], you know better than to push your luck with these things.

"Yeah. You?" He asks as he readjusts the strap of his Nike duffel bag on his shoulder. It looks ridiculously heavy and you wonder what's inside it.

Fate, you guess, is having a field day. You nod your head in agreement, allowing your hair cascade around your face in a bid to hide how giddy your feeling. The awkwardness is still there but something more is pushing it to the back of your mind until it lies dormant. You want to enjoy this feeling. The fact that Jinyoung hasn't gone running the opposite direction is enough faith to have you willing to test this whole soulmate thing out.

The two of you, without much words, fall into step next to each other on the way to your respective destinations. You play a game of kicking the stray stones on your path, playing footsie with yourself. You bite your lower lip, asking your inner gods for strength.

"So," you start a new conversation. "How long have you been playing baseball?"

"Since I was ten," Jinyoung replies as he raises his cap and runs a hand through his inky black hair. You're in awe at how chiseled his face looks. Beyond what you are expecting but you're not exactly complaining. "Twelve years." There's unabashed pride in his voice.

"Ooh," you clap your hands together in astonishment.

He takes a mock bow and you laugh at him. He's actually pretty cute now that you think about it. At first, you had been intimidated by how intense he looked at you but as the moments' tick on you're beginning to warm up to him or maybe he is warming up to you? Either way, you're finding it harder and harder to contain the heat seeping through your body and you're sure he can tell the effect he's having on you.

"How about you? Do you play any sports?"

You clear your throat. "Well, of course. I'm exceptionally skilled in the arts of procrastinating and crying about said procrastinated work when I accidentally miss a deadline. I'm self-taught and a professional."

Jinyoung's laughter lifts weights from your chest and frankly, you're surprised when he doubles over, clutching his sides. You like him already. Anyone that can put up with your lame jokes is a keeper in your books. You don't mean to compare but Nathan had never once cracked a smile at them. Okay so maybe you do want to compare, Nathan can suck it.

"Tell me more about this sport of yours," he says after he has regained his breath and his chest isn't threatening to explode.

"It usually ends in regret and soon after that I'll vouch to never procrastinate again but as expected, I never listen."

He chuckles lightly at that but lets the conversation die. This time the silence is comfortable and you don't feel the need to fill it with words. However, you do want to ask him for his phone number and maybe if you're daring enough, ask him to hang out tomorrow after your shift; to get to know him better. It's one thing finding your soulmate, it's another actually bonding with them. You wonder if he's thinking along the same lines as you are or if he's a go-with-the-flow kinda person.

Before you know it, you've arrived at the front steps of your dorm. Lone college students stream out of it, probably on their way to a frat party or maybe they enjoy the cool night air? Who knows. You turn your gaze back to Jinyoung, steeling your resolve. If you don't ask him now for his contact then when? Unless he drops by the cafe sometime later or if you indulge in perpetually jogging around the baseball's practice field in hopes of seeing him again, you doubt the universe is going to give you another chance.

"Do you mind if —" you begin just as Jinyoung says, "Should we exchange —"

Your lips lean upwards and you do nothing to stop the laughter bubbling up from your ribs. You motion for him to say his words first and you snort [internally] as you watch him fiddle with his mobile phone, nervous.

He clears his throat. "Should we, uh, exchange numbers or something? Only if you want though."

Instead of answering him directly, you reach into your back pocket and produce your mobile device and hand it to him. As he swaps his phone with yours, your fingers brush against each other and you swear you can feel your nerves expand and burst... if that's even possible.

The pair of you make quick work with inputting your data and you're about to hand him his phone back when you see him raise your phone to his eye-level and take a picture. Ah, profiles. You filter back to edit your contact and do the same. The lighting is bad and your hair is a mess but your smile is bright. Brighter than you imagined. And after fruitless attempts to rein it in, you hand Jinyoung his phone in optimistic silence.

He takes one glance at your saved contact before he stuffs his phone in his pocket. "You can call me whenever you want... Even if you don't have a reason to."

"Okay," you say. "You too. Maybe we can meet up sometime?"

"Sounds like a plan."

You're about to head up the steps and fly to your room when you finally remember that you haven't introduced yourself to him yet. You whip your head back and push a palm out. "I'm [y/n], by the way."

He gives you a lopsided smile that kind of melts your insides as he grabs your hand, his wrapping yours in its entirety.

"Jinyoung."

It feels like the two of you have created a pact. You're definitely attracted to him and to God you hope this soulmate system is actually something to swear by. But if the butterflies in your stomach are anything to go by, this — whatever it is — is something good. You manage to utter a goodbye before you're dashing up to your room, afraid to turn back because you know he'll be able to tell that you're three steps away from falling headfirst over him.

Althea and BamBam are the first things on your mind. Right now you just want to scream out in joy. And even though three is a crowd, three is also company. Company that you’re sure will lose their shit along with you by these turn of events.

You're almost in the safety of your room, already pulling open Snapchat when your phone chimes with a new message.

Park Jinyoung >-< » by the way, I got tongue tied earlier [10:42 pm]

Park Jinyoung >-< » but you are so very cute, my god [10:42 pm]

A/N: woo! i hope people like this and tell me what they think. thank you very much for reading!

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