honestly seeing you mention sikh society is so funny bc sikh people LOVE showing their culture! i work with a lot of sikh men and they're always bringing food into work and just love being asked culture. im chinese and they're always asking questions as well- cultural exchange is such a personal thing and imo one of the easiest ways to build a relationship

literally!!!!!! and your last comment is so important bc the reason i made that post is bc i actually found myself guilty of the tiktok mindset WITH one of the chefs at work. he's spanish and has quite a heavy accent and for a long time i really dithered on asking him where he was from (bc all i knew from his accent was that it was european which. doesnt really help) and in my head i was doing it bc i didnt want to 'other' him, but in the end my mum actually said to me that being clearly uncertain around him and NOT addressing the fact we clearly come from different places was actually making things worse, and i was so so pissed off at myself bc she was right. and you know what? i asked him not long ago in the end where he was from, and he lit up. we went back and forth about the spanish and the english and we ribbed each other but it felt like the weird tension existing in all our interactions up until that point had lifted and now he makes a point to come over and chat to me at work. and that tension wasn't there bc i DISLIKED his potential culture or felt actually UNCOMFORTABLE around him, it existed because i demonised my own curiosity and genuine desire to know about him as a person and let myself be a little freak about it instead. like????? it's so fucked up that this is becoming such a normalised thing!!!!

I don't know if you know blue eye Samurai, but I hate how people talk about the protagonist.

I'm a non binary Trans man, and I actually identify a lot with Mizu (the protagonist), but I go here on Tumblr and I see a lot of posts that say: "I know everyone can see Mizu however they like, but I want everyone to know that the right interpretation is that she is a woman pretending to be a man... but everyone can think whatever they want, not forgetting that she is a woman of course."

And it's a bit annoying because when I see explanations of why is "wrong" to see Mizu as a Trans man, I see people going "Why can't there be representation of gender non conforming women!?" And "she wouldn't pretend to be a man if it wasn't for the society she lives in!"

The last one makes me especially angry, because of how many Trans men get erased from history with that same argument.

I don't know, I think it makes me mad because that fandom feels like a micro cosmos of the anti Trans masculinity a lot of Trans men have to face.

And it's not like I think it's wrong to see Mizu as a woman, but when everyone goes "of course she is a woman, why would she want to be a man for anything other than necessity?" I don't know how to feel.

I'm gonna steal my own words from that post about jeanne d'arc:

And the best part is, we can say all of this and also see her as part of women's history! Because women's history, too, does not have to be exclusively about woman-born or woman-identified women. It can be about a larger cultural experience. And Jeanne d'Arc suffered because of transphobia which is always fundamentally misogynistic. I would argue it even makes sense to say her death involved transmisogyny in a very literal sense. The thing about transfeminism is that it can free us from the need to view personal identification with the role of "woman" as vital to feminism. Being a woman, in whatever sense, is certainly not unrelated to feminism, but one can be a feminist and have any kind of personal or communal relationship with womanhood. Anyone can be inspired by the story of Jeanne d'Arc and her bold defiance of both misogyny and transphobia, no matter how she may have personally understood her gender.

People have this idea where if a character or historical figure (or even currently living person) is anything but a woman, then any kind of Feminist Story falls apart. Especially when it comes to misogyny! People act like someone being a trans man means all their experiences with misogyny are like. gone? Or the story is now, essentially, about a cis man being mistaken for a woman, and thus women are Not Allowed to feel any connection at all.

All of this on top of the fun hypocrisy that is "we can't say this person/character is a trans man because they wouldn't have that concept, but we can say they are a cis woman because those are both the only options and ciswomanhood is a natural and universal concept we can apply regardless of any other context :)"

& with Mizu its like. you literally can see her as a GNC woman. people calling him a trans guy or transmasc or genderqueer or anything else are not taking away your experience of her as a GNC woman. Transmasculinity is not just Negative Womanhood, the idea that transmasculinity is something which saps away representation/power/dignity/identity/value from (cis) women is like ATM 101.

But the whole way people treat trans men and misogyny really annoys me, I guess because the assumption is that for women, having to dress as a man to get respect inspires anger at one's position in society, but trans men are incapable of having any complex feelings about that. Like trans men must fully enjoy not being able to have sex with others, or go to a doctor, and having to live in fear of being outed and facing the brunt of transphobia and misogyny, and trans men also couldn't possibly be angry about misogyny that they experienced, and also nonbinary people don't exist and no transmasculine person could possibly be anything but fully comfortable being seen as a cis man all the time. Sure, some trans men are perfectly happy passing as cis men, but like. there is more than one trans man. & ignoring all other transmasc experiences besides The One is a form of erasure, it just passes as something else because technically you are acknowledging A transmasc existence.

How To Give (and Receive) Respect In Romantic Relationships

Boundaries, empathy, and mutual respect are essential in any healthy relationship. These fundamentals you're in a long-term committed relationship, cohabitating with a partner, engaged, married, or some form of steady casual or nonmonogamous relationship. Here are some tips and general advice on how to provide respect to your partner without sacrificing your own needs.

Communicate Your Boundaries & Expectations: Let your partner know your non-negotiables, trigger, and expectations in every aspect of life (e.g. communication throughout the day/at work, date night frequency/activities, any triggering/unsafe people or parts of your past/family you don't want to discuss, etc.). Encourage your partner to share their boundaries/expectations, too. Sharing these vital details allows you to communicate your needs, avoid unnecessary arguments, and lead to generally more fulfilling interactions that don't breed resentment over time.

Maintain Your Sense of Self: Respecting yourself is essential to fully respect others. A healthy relationship is 100% +100% = 300%, not 50/50. Codependency is a significant sign of disrespect because it makes someone (unhealthfully) responsible for your happiness and fulfillment. While you want to share many activities (even a home and many other possessions/experiences) together, having interests, hobbies, friends, your own career, etc. that are just for you allows you to draw fulfillment from within and add value to your romantic connection/ enrich your partner's understanding of different activities/tastes/cultures/ways of life. Sacrificing your personhood to please another person will eventually breed resentment and cause you to cross their boundaries – clear signs of disrespect.

Be Upfront About Your Priorities, Values, & Goals: Combining the former two points, the most respectful thing you can do for your partner is to be as upfront as possible about what you're looking for in a partner and where you see the relationship going (in stages, of course, depending on how serious the relationship is). Always be upfront about the values that matter the most to you (i.e. any political/religious dealbreakers, lifestyle habits, career/life balance, cohabitating, socializing expectations, children, etc.). Being honest about your needs in these areas is essential, so they know what you're looking for and don't find out through passive-aggressive "hints" throughout the relationship that can cause tension, unfair punishment/manipulative behavior, or waste someone's time.

Take An Interest In Your Partner's Career: Display the same level of interest and thoughtfulness you expect them to have with you when you share details about your work and career. It's not cute to be clueless about what your partner spends most of their waking hours doing and where their passions lie. Ask them questions about the field they're working in, if they're excited about any projects they're working on, future goals, cool networking opportunities, etc.

Encourage Your Partner To Have Their Own Interests, Hobbies, and Friend Group: A strong, healthy bond can only remain intact when two whole, well-rounded people come together in a relationship. Encourage your partner to have their own identity outside, not to the exclusion of, your relationship. Have hobbies, their own group of friends/hangouts, and activities they do together. No one's full range of needs can (or should) depend on one person. This level of emotional labor is too taxing for someone else to take on and drains the other person until they become a shell of themselves. These over-the-top expectations erode someone's energy to focus on their personal goals and needs – definitely a sign of disrespect.

Establish A Financial Arrangement & Stick To It: Every relationship is different. There's no such thing as a magic formula for an "equal" or "fair" financial arrangement. However, it is important to mutually establish your financial expectations for the relationship fairly quickly. Otherwise, you could be seen as taking advantage of someone else without your knowledge, thereby, crossing their boundaries, or you can become (subconsciously or consciously) resentful when a partner comes across as "stingy" because you never communicated your expectations (especially if your love language is gift-giving or acts of service).

Plan Thoughtful Dates & Gestures: Making your partner feel special and desired is essential in a relationship. The level of extravagance, planning, or romance depends on your individual preferences and type of relationship/level of commitment to the other person. However, it is essential to plan something special for your partner (that's thoughtful, incredibly sexy, or both) on occasion to show that you view them as more than a friend. It signals a sign of respect for the value this person adds to your life and your gratitude for their sharing this type of bond with you.

Be Empathetically Strategic With Their Friends & Family: Always kill them with kindness without being a doormat. Stick up for yourself if disrespected. But, especially with family, it is important to be cordial with your partner's outside relationship and try your best to not put them in a position to pick sides. You wouldn't want to cause unnecessary tension and stress for attention or entitled treatment from someone you respect.

Hope this helps xx

What the Sacred Heart of Jesus tells us about a relationship with him

Last month I wrote about the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Sacred Yes. Half a love letter to mothers, half an exegesis on how God loves us so much that he gives us nonstop choices in life. I hope the whole thing showed those less acquainted with Catholic devotion to Mary how she ultimately is pointing us to her son Jesus Christ in everything she does. That was in part inspired by May being regarded as Mary’s month among Catholics in alignment with Mother’s Day. The month of June has the popular devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus associated with it.

This devotion is also distinctly Catholic, even more so than Mariology which we Catholics share with Eastern Orthodoxy and the other ancient Churches within Christianity. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion so rich yet so strongly compacted into such a small package. I always write this, but I actually did not know where to start with this one. The symbolism here unfolds into a crash course guide to a relationship with Jesus.

You might recognize the thumbnail image of the Sacred Heart: often pictured with the crown of thorns, the wound representing Jesus getting lanced in the side on the cross (often even showing a sword or lance going in), a cross on top, and that distinctive fire. It’s a starkly visible way of indicating what Jesus is all about when he loves us. It also teaches us how we might respond.

So let’s dive into the Sacred Heart devotion: not just its history and practice but also what it means to how we might approach our relationship with Jesus nowadays. I would be a bad writer if I didn’t consider where my readers might be coming from. When we talk about this devotion we are talking about something that strikes to the heart of how we Christians, in all our varieties, conceive of being in relationship with God as a lived experience.

No matter what Christian tradition you came from, maybe none at all, its worth pointing out toward the beginning here that the subtly of devotion is always influenced by cultural time and place. Nowadays many Americans might envision a large concert hall as a worship space just as good as an old stone Church. To each his own as long as you understand the cultural influences that might drive you to your preferred worship and devotional practices.

What isn’t a matter of taste in Christian thought is the personal relationship with Jesus itself. While its fair to say Christian traditions of a high-liturgy background, as we Religious Studies wonks say, have often de-emphasized the more personal acceptance driven elements of that core relationships in favor of sacramentality (think Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the other Eastern Churches when I say high-liturgy); it’s not fair however to say that sense of Sacramental exchange is a substitute for the personal relationship with Christ so heavily emphasized in Protestant circles in our day and age to the forsaking of everything else.

What you’re noticing in that are actually different cultural preferences hardened over centuries and filtered through more modern proclivities. Normally what we notice about each other’s religious practices is what seems different. The differences are often cultural performance, not anything fundamental to the faith itself.

While Protestant circles are often so focused on a culturally palatable personal acceptance that they struggle to nail down a consistent community identity, personal acceptance looks far less culturally palatable in high-liturgy traditions to the point the community identity is a bit too distinctive sometimes. That last sentence might be the most concise summation of the Christian culture in the United States I have ever written.

For example I often feel I can tell you most everything you need to know about a Catholic by how difficult they think it is to commit a mortal sin. Is it easy? Rigorist conservative. Is it hard? Solidarist progressive. Perhaps the Protestant equivalent of that would be music taste. Do they prefer contemporary music? Evangelical conservative. Do they prefer traditional hymns? Mainline liberal.

Either way, when you see other Christians doing things you don’t like you should ask yourself: am I seeing an actual religious difference or simply a cultural preference?

With that disclaimer out of the way let’s take a trip back in time for some context. Actually, one last note before the history: the visions of Jesus experienced by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque are endorsed by the Catholic Church but are not doctrinal or dogmatic beliefs. That is to say you are not obliged by your confession of the faith to believe the story or visions that I am about to share with you. The term we often ascribe to these kinds of originating events for more recent devotions is personal revelation: as in, not binding, universal revelation that informs the basics of the religious beliefs, but personal insights that might help others in their own personal devotion.

The History

The year is 1673. The Protestant Reformation is finally beginning to become a piece of history instead of a day-to-day reality. Religious Wars have torn Europe apart for a century. 25 years earlier the Peace of Westphalia had ended the Thirty Years War, the most destructive such religious war in Europe, which had killed eight million people mostly from starvation and disease. The modern nation state is in its infancy. The world is still dominated by monarchies that claim absolute power if they don’t in fact possess it.

Religion is often written into governing documents and mandates though most leaders are now using it as mere pretext to fight over political and economic interests more than actually fighting over any faith itself. Religion is still central to the lives of most everyone in this time and place, but the highest levels of society have abandoned litigating the Reformation any further for fear of the agony it had caused for so many.

In this world we find a young woman named Margaret Alacoque. Her early life is defined by suffering as her father died from pneumonia when she was eight years old. Alacoque’s uncle now possessed the family’s assets and horded them for himself leaving her family destitute. She herself took ill for four years before making a vow to religious life. Soon thereafter she was healed and, crediting her healing to the Blessed Virgin Mary, added Mary to her baptismal name.

Margaret Mary Alacoque’s family fortunes turned around as well. Her brothers took possession of the household lifting them all out of poverty, and Margaret Mary, now an adult woman, considered abandoning the vow of her childhood as her mother encouraged her to pursue marriage. She went to social events with her brothers in pursuit of a husband but often struggled personally with what she was going to do with her life. Sounds familiar, eh?

It was after such a social event that Margaret Mary felt called back to Christ. Though Jesus was firmly calling her back to her first love, he also expressed so much love and mercy toward Margaret Mary and her struggles to see the right way forward. This would become the pattern of the whole devotion she would take up.

Margaret Mary became a religious sister with Visitation Nuns who attended to the sick and needy. She again struggled to see her way in all this: now she struggled to adapt to the often unnoticed, difficult work of her monastic community. As any helping professional knows intimately: helping others in need does not necessarily lead to gratitude or a more just world. The indifferent suffering of the world which was so evident everywhere around her and in her own life overwhelmed Margaret Mary. Jesus would again help her in her struggles. Beginning December 21st, 1674, Margaret Mary received multiple visions of Jesus presence with his Sacred Heart extended out to her.

Her revelations came at a price Saints often face. Theologians of her time called them delusions. Some of her own fellow religious sisters rebuked her. A doctor said she was losing her mind and needed to eat more. Yes, a person claiming to practice whatever medicine was in the 17th century thought this woman just needed to eat more to cure whatever this was! Her revelations received only some recognition before her death at age 43.

Like with many Saints her devotion had a much bigger impact once she joined the Communion of Saints in Heaven. The Sacred Heart of Jesus image and message spread far and wide in the ensuing decades and centuries to the point Pope Pius IX declared a solemnity for it in 1856 for the Friday after Corpus Christi. By the time Pope Benedict XV canonized her a Saint in 1920, her devotional practice was widespread to the point Churches were being named after her and the Sacred Heart. My own Diocesan Cathedral here in Rochester, New York is named in honor of the Sacred Heart.

The Practice and the Image

The practice that St. Margaret Mary Alacoque would keep up for the rest of her life and grow into one of the most popular devotions in Catholicism, was charmingly simple. Often seen as reparation for the cold, ingratitude of the suffering world, the French mystic had a Holy Hour in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Thursday nights in commemoration of Jesus’ own isolated sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was followed by another Holy Hour on Friday, particularly the First Friday of each month paired with the reception of Holy Communion as well.

This devotion often includes a Novena and, especially for laypeople, the enshrinement of an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a place of honor in your living space. I won’t summarize them beyond a quick list here, but St. Margaret Mary was also given twelve promises by Jesus for those engaging in this devotion. They are so very focused on personal graces that devotees are encouraged to frequently reconsider how the Sacred Heart of Jesus might impact the specific conditions of their own lives.

Jesus gives all graces necessary for your unique state of life.

Jesus gives us peace in our families.

Jesus consoles us in all our troubles.

Jesus is our refuge in life and especially in death.

Jesus will bless all our right efforts.

Jesus’ heart will be an infinite ocean of mercy for sinners.

Jesus will give your fervor where you are tepid.

Jesus will elevate the fervorous toward perfection.

Jesus will bless those places where the image of the Sacred Heart is venerated.

Jesus will give priests the power to touch hardened hearts.

Jesus will reward those who propagate this devotion.

Jesus will preserve devotees from dying in his displeasure (i.e. in mortal sin) and give them a happy death with sufficient access to the sacraments.

One of the things I love about most Catholic devotions is that they benefit from how distinctively pre-modern they are. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a relatively recently emerging devotion in the grand scope of the history of Catholicism. Nonetheless, this devotion bears the hallmarks of arising in a time before literacy was widespread.

Yes, I love how old timey taverns once had giant wooden beer mugs hanging off the side. I like knowing what I am getting into. Sue me! The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion with a very low barrier to entry. If you know about the essential elements of Jesus’ story you’re already halfway there. Moreover, I think we need visual symbolism to really ground ourselves religiously. I am someone who might be accused of having his head in the clouds so I can appreciate the way an image like this, drawing from scripture, illustrates the relational core of our faith to us in starkly visual terms.

Where to start? The most sublime detail you notice with the Sacred Heart is that it’s meant to look like an anatomical heart. That is, the kind of heart beating in your chest right now, not the kind you draw on a card to a loved one.

Theologically this is a reference to Jesus’ two natures: most Christians believe he was both fully human and fully divine with no conflict therein. The Hypostatic Union as this is called, hits hard in this context when you put yourself in St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s shoes. She knew suffering intimately as a feature of her own life and of the people in her time and place in history, particularly over religion. It is as if to say to the people of that early post-reformation world that if you all truly love Jesus you ought not be killing each other over him. Jesus had all the power and did not kill anyone, in fact the opposite: he resurrected multiple people!

Jesus’ Sacred Heart being anatomical would have expressed a gritty realism that makes God’s love for us real, not just a neat idea to be periodically set aside like any other possession. It still does have that effect if you ask me: how galling for God to confront you with the visceral truth that God cares so much about what goes on in your physical reality?

How might the realism of Jesus’ Sacred Heart, reminding us he was human too, help us to make our convictions real in messy, sometimes brutally ugly lived experiences?

If you are a sassy soul like me you might next notice the wound on the side of the heart representing Jesus getting lanced in the side on the cross. Yes, this is often considered where the euphemism “bleeding heart” came from. Yes, it’s often deployed as a mockery of the generous and kind… even though that mockery would seem to mock the very Sacred Heart of Jesus himself. Ah, I don’t know, seems like an insult that says more about the one dealing the insult than the one receiving it.

A bleeding heart, a living heart in other words, might also evoke constancy, a steadiness that is worthy of our faith. Not just a steadiness, a real anatomical heart bleeding evokes the real deal: love that is not fickle or passing. The ones who bleed for you love you the most. The ones who suffer for you are authentic friends, if not family already.

Where am I hardening my heart as to avoid the painful, bleeding empathy Jesus demands of his followers?

The Crown of Thorns is also an essential element of the Sacred Heart image. Jesus is laden with the crown after Pontius Pilate declares him convicted and condemns him to crucifixion. No going back now: Jesus accepts the consequences of his mission. The Crown of Thorns shows that Jesus is not doing any of this for praise or adulation even though he is literally God and deserves it more than anyone else in history. If you ask me Jesus is the only person in history who deserves a crown.

The crown also communicates that Jesus’ love is truthful. True love is naturally bonded with integrity. Truth is a prerequisite of love and Jesus’ Sacred Heart is truer than all others. Truth does not change and therefore we might consider the acceptance of this suffering which the crown of thorns represents as proof of the truthfulness of Jesus: He is honest to the point of death therefore we can believe all the other teachings he gave us.

The Crown of Thorns shows us that Jesus is not the Messiah for the proud and self-interested: he did not come to conquer the Roman oppressors for the nation of Israel but to conquer the great oppressor of sin for all humanity. The crown of thorns is no royal crown, it’s a sign of how Jesus uses his divine power: for total self-gift. Practically speaking, Jesus’ Sacred Heart is for the poor, oppressed, marginalized, and mocked because he, Jesus Christ the King of the Universe incarnate among us, is himself among the ranks of the poor and outcast: a crown of such a King could only be made of thorns.

Am I being true to those who depend upon me? Am I being true to the outsider, the ignored people of my time and place in history who are not appealing to see and engage with?

The cross is fixed atop the Sacred Heart in perhaps its most obvious component part. The sacrificial, ultimately generous love of Jesus is everything the Christian is called to if they seriously mean to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. We take up the crosses of our own struggles, even if they seem impossible. We do difficult things because Jesus did the most difficult thing out of the goodness of his Sacred Heart. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque must have felt this intimately when she first gazed upon the Savior’s heart.

Even on the cross Jesus prays to God saying “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus’ sacrificial love is fully committed to welcoming in as many people into his loving mercy, as many people as are willing to welcome it in their own hearts. He was suffering fatal torture and yet prayed for his torturers to be forgiven for that very act they were doing to him. One might easily find themselves pondering all those people Jesus knew in those suffering hours of his passion who he already knew would reject him, there on calvary and far beyond it. Jesus’ Sacred Heart tells us there is nobody Jesus does not want to sacrifice himself for. This is an empathy unparalleled.

What crosses do I need to take up? What crosses do I need to drop?

Finally the fiery visage of the whole Sacred Heart image together might suggest to you something more along the lines of the bleeding: an intense passion. But in this devotion the flames represent the glory of the whole heart. Such a love as emanates from the Sacred Heart of Jesus is truly a glorious love. Moreover, such love redefines what glory means. This glory is not self-aggrandizing, it is powerful by its self-giving.

Love glorious like this warms a cold world hardened by sin. Love glorious like this will light up what sin hopes to drag into the darkness of unaccountability. These flames evoke the flaming tongues of Pentecost in a way that might make the Christian recall their first fervor: that acute, but so fleeting desire to bring the glorious love of Jesus’ Gospel message to all. Love isn’t about feelings but when you feel the drive to love the way your faith calls you to, it’s the most powerful motivation out there. That might be our closest encounter in this life with the glory of God.

Do I take the glory of God seriously or is my faith a private affair I restrict to only where it seems socially acceptable? Do I see the glory of God in all people or just the ones I identify with?

The Sacred Heart’s wisdom for us

You probably noticed those questions I interjected along the way as we went through the symbolism. Just to recap they are again in the order they appeared for your reflection purposes here below:

How might the realism of Jesus’ Sacred Heart, reminding us he was human too, help us to make our convictions real in messy, sometimes brutally ugly lived experiences? Where am I hardening my heart as to avoid the painful, bleeding empathy Jesus demands of his followers? Am I being true to those who depend upon me? Am I being true to the outsider, the ignored people of my time and place in history who are not appealing to see? What crosses do I need to take up? What crosses do I need to drop? Do I take the glory of God seriously or is my faith a private affair I restrict to only where it seems socially acceptable? Do I see the glory of God in all people or just the ones I identify with?

The sad thing to say about this devotion is that in spite of everything it’s often misused. The troubled time it originated in, the devotion’s focus on empathy for those suffering, the insistent merciful love that Jesus communicates through it: all that is often forgotten in its month, June, because devotees like to use it for bigotry.

I cannot tell you how often during June, Pride month for the LGBTQ+ community in most of the world, I will see various litmus tests of one’s Christianity pitting the Sacred Heart of Jesus against the symbols of the LGBTQ+ community. This snide gatekeeping misses the point of the whole devotion. The motivation seems to make those sexual minorities pick between their own advocacy and Jesus.

Jesus was not eager to condemn, quite the opposite actually. The eagerness to condemn with Catholic homophobia is so thinly veiled it’s quite sickening. It drives many in that community off of Catholic social media for the month if not far worse. If you think you need to act this way toward the LGBTQ+ community then you need to take a step back and remember Jesus’ example: even if God’s will is for some kind of repentance for a sexual orientation (which the more you learn about science and the faith the more you realize such a position is unscientific and unchristian) Jesus went and ate with those he identified as sinners. He chose empathy before condemnation and ultimately the outcasts he ate with were the ones he praised for having more faith than the religious authorities. That was all before any of them repented for anything he was commanding them to repent for.

This homophobic deployment of the Sacred Heart also seems to go against the primary witness this devotion is trying to impart. Jesus wanted to show us he loves us so mercifully, so inclusively, and so in spite of anything that may drive us away from him. Why would those claiming to follow him seek to drive anyone away from him?

This behavior is peak wolf in sheep’s clothing.

If you want a contemporary example there is none more on the nose than that one. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was speaking Jesus’ mercy into a time and place where it was needed. Not only that but she herself struggled to see the way forward at almost every turn in her life. She questioned how she could bear her family’s suffering. She questioned if she was actually called to be a religious sister. She struggled with the answers to questions that ultimately drove right down into who she was as a person.

How many people struggle with their identity? How many people doubt their decisions every step of the way after deciding them? How much does this reflect the human condition more generally: we are always struggling with doubt. And to all that how did Jesus respond?

Jesus made St. Mary Margaret Alacoque a profound conduit of grace. Jesus chose to remind humanity of his profound mercy in the face of the great confusion of the French Saint’s time and place in history as well as mercy in the face of the suffering and confusion of the woman herself. It is very rare for Jesus himself to be the one appearing in a vision in the Catholic world. The Blessed Mother comes to communicate mercy with some regularity it would seem, but Jesus?

Jesus coming to show us his Sacred Heart speaks to our Savior looking on confusion, anxiety itself if you will, and saying: first remember I am love and I am mercy. Seek Jesus first before all judgment on yourself or others. Remember we’re hardly a century removed from the most divisive schism in Christian history when Jesus comes to the lowly nun. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque had already had a vision of Jesus inspiring her to become a Nun and she still doubted! Jesus responds with mercy. Mercy comes before anything resembling judgment.

How many scrupulous souls need to hear that message? How many souls stuck in the rebellion of sin need to hear that message? Yes, God is our judge but not before extending mercy unimaginable to us. The bare minimum response to this is extending mercy to others. Then we must possess the humility enough to not think we have all the answers: particularly the answers that allow us to set aside the Sacred Heart of Jesus and become judges ourselves as if we want to be God and replace that merciful heart with a far more vengeful outlook.

Evils big and little begin when we a person sets aside the goodness of love and humility for a personal vendetta or a set of grievances that one specific group must be punished for. Evil often comes when we decide that loving patience must take a back seat to prideful confrontation as if we are all mere vessels of ideas to do battle for supremacy. We are wounded hearts all of us, in need of mercy and love.

Anyone with a basic Christian education knows God is love. This devotion is the further unfolding of that biblical truth: God is love. God is mercy. God is empathy. God is devotion. God is sacrifice. God is glory. God is all powerful. It’s almost a roadmap to religious devotion all its own. In my experience God’s glory and power is normally something you experience further down the road from God’s mercy and empathy. All that in the neat, beautifully visual devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As I was about to publish this article it was reported that Pope Francis will be authoring an Apostolic Exhortation dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in September! That was some incredible timing! Apostolic Exhortations are best thought of as letters of encouragement to the whole Church. Of all Papal documents they tend to be the most devotional and the most heartfelt. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the vocal point of our encouragement and empathy as Jesus shows us how to be ever greater lovers of himself and of all people!

Thanks for reading! My book “How to catch feelings for Jesus” is available online. Admittedly I don’t discuss the Sacred Heart of Jesus itself in the book, I definitely hit on the themes of the devotion in other facets. Share this article! I am in the swing of writing on a monthly basis now and would love to hear your input. Did you really read more than 4500 words to not have something to say about it?

Hawks and Twice; Identities and Foils

Part one, lol

Okay, season six is fully out so I can finally talk about the Hawks killing Twice scene without tagging it as spoilers because. Listen. I love you guys, but some of the takes I’ve been reading about it are just maybe not the scalding hot read you think they are. So... let’s talk about it.

There are a few things that most people have picked up on and that I’d like to reestablish so we can all move past them to the nitty-gritty stuff. First is that, yes, Hawks is in the wrong for killing Twice. Narratively,  it is considered by everyone (including Hawks himself) to have been a bad thing to do. There’s so much grief surrounding Twice’s death, and everyone involved is badly affected by it. That’s the point of the scene. You aren’t supposed to have the takeaway that this was a righteous act, or that it was fair; it’s supposed to feel brutal, and wrong, and disgusting. You are supposed to come away questioning a lot of preestablished “truths” of the series. The main one here, of course, being that the roles of Heroes and Villains may not be as clear-cut as previously shown.

HOWEVER. The continuing takeaway is not really meant to be that Hawks is evil, or that the villains were actually in the right all along. Sure, you can personally dislike Hawks and/or his actions, but narratively speaking, this scene is not supposed to reframe him as somehow worse than the actual villains. What this scene is mean to accomplish is a deconstruction of the concept of heroes, villains, and the ties that bind them to better understand their similarities as much as their differences.

Identity is a prominent theme throughout the story, and the way Horikoshi plays with both the concept of identity and roles in this scene is really interesting and very well done. 

To start with the easier stuff, the first two “identities” that are immediately flipped on their heads are the titles of Hero and Villain. Both within the story and as an audience with our own external culture, we can recognize that Heroes are supposed to be 'good' and Villains are supposed to be 'bad'. That's a presupposed fact, and it's not hard to see that, while this has usually been true in the context of the story, suddenly it's not so clear—how can someone be a Hero when they're acting the way Hawks does? How can that be ordered by the people in charge of the Heroes? Sanctioned? Approved of?

The obvious answer that I'm sure you're telling me to get to already is that the heroes aren't always 'good', and that Hero society is, in fact, worse.

The art emphasizes this beautifully (seriously, the art in this scene is so good); Hawks the Hero stands shadowed and coldly predatory, while Twice the Villain is on his back, belly-up on the ground, trembling and crying. Hawks mocks Twice for being too trusting, Twice tells him that he had to be, because it was kind. And he can’t imagine not being that.

And this polarity reveals why it is so important that these two, who superficially have very little in common, undermine the dichotomy between Hero and Villain. Because Hawks and Twice actually have one very specific trait that connects them: the desire to help people.

Now, they obviously show it very differently and have opposing definitions on who, exactly, they believe deserves help. That’s what makes them foils. But the gut-wrenching string between these two men is that they are both trying to protect people. That’s their underlying goal, the one fundamental principle they both have that they will not waver on; unstoppable force, meet immovable object. They are, for this one moment, the same person. Because it’s also not as simple as just their desire to protect people—it’s that they both were inevitably going to end up in this stand-off. 

Something I don’t see talked about very much is how both Hawks and Twice are being used. It’s pretty obvious with Hawks, having been essentially bought as a child and manipulated by the HPSC to become the perfect hero and do what’s asked of him on the basis that, again, he wants to help people. He was a kid who was so alone and so desperate to be good, and then the HPSC, seeing how much potential he had, swooped in and offered him the resources and ability to make his dreams come true. He is a good person whose trust and sense of compassion have been manipulated so that he commits reprehensible acts because he is both told and genuinely believes that they will save people’s lives. And the really fucked up part is that they’re right— but more on that later.

For the people saying— “but that’s not like Twice at all. Twice is working with the League. They’re his friends. He loves them”—yeah that’s my whole point. What is the one thing Twice desperately wants, more than anything? Companionship. The feeling that he isn’t alone. Love. He’s been by himself almost his whole life, and his every choice has been reflective of his desire to have meaningful connections. He wants to be surrounded by people who accept him, and he wants to accept them in turn. and the League take advantage of that.

Now, before anybody gets mad, yes, the League do actually care about each other. Their relationships are complicated to say the least, and not really the found family that I see cropping up sometimes in Fanon, but they have each other’s backs, and they take care of each other. They don’t mind Twice’s eccentricities, and in fact even praise him for them. 

Which is sort of the problem. On his own, Twice is, at best, an unstable man willing to steal and ignore a lot of societal rules for the sake of his own comfort and happiness. But he isn’t naturally violent. In fact, the first time he experiences real, visceral violence, it traumatizes him so badly he gains an entire dissociative disorder. 

But that’s okay! He doesn’t mind that so much, as long as he has friends. He just wants to be helpful. And oh boy, does the League want his help. 

For people who do (in my opinion) genuinely care about Twice, they also ask him to do a lot of fucked up stuff (like kidnapping, and murder, and other general terrorist stuff). Because it benefits them. What other organization does that, I wonder?

Oh. Right.

Twice is dangerous. I’m sorry to all the people that like to infantilize him and act like he wasn’t about to run out of the door and murder and/or severely injure a bunch of heroes/civilians, but Twice was, canonically, going to go do that.  Because he believed that that was the only way to save his friends. That’s part of why this scene is so horrific and well written, because either way it went, someone was going to lose. And the unfortunate reality is that if Hawks didn’t stop him, Twice was going to go commit some unforgiveable crimes to a lot of people who didn’t deserve it, and he was never going to go quietly, because that’s not the kind of person that he is. Which Hawks understands; he’s the same way. But it’s also awful because neither of them should have ever been put in the position to have to make this choice. 

A big part of what the story explores when it comes to identities is how they are defined, and who gives them to you. Hawks and Twice both actively struggle with this, being two people who don't feel (rightly or not) that they've had a lot of agency in their lives.

Hawks wants to help people, but he feels stifled by the role of Hero, which was chosen for him, and whose expectations he chafes against. For as much as he supports the HPSC and upholds their goals, he has a lot of doubts and critiques of how hero society works. He is a Hero because somebody else saw him and thought he should be, not necessarily because he decided to be all on his own, regardless of his own twisted view of his past. But he doesn't always like what is asked of him, or the restraints that working for the HPSC puts on him. It's heavily implied that he feels like his personhood has been lost to his Hero identity (Hawks, as opposed to Keigo), and doesn't know how to reconcile his own actions with the public's perception of him.

Twice, similarly, had his role chosen for him at a young age (hitting a guy with his motorcycle and spiraling afterwards) and actively dislikes the label of Villain. He's not someone who craves violence or cruelty, but rather someone who gravitates towards it because he's run out of other options. And if the only people who are kind to him are Villains, what does that say about Heroes and their so-called goodness? Twice doesn't know that he, or any of the League, should be called Villains. How can they be worse than the heroes when basic decency is too much to ask of the people you're meant to idolize?

They're both caged by the way the world sees them versus the way they want to be seen, as well as trapped by the choices they've made in relation to the people they wish they were. Because, to be clear, they do both make choices. That's how they end up where they do, both wishing they were somewhere else—or maybe someone else.

Twice is a killer who never set out to be a killer. Hawks is a killer who never set out to be a killer. Twice is a Villain. Hawks is a Hero.

They’re in a room alone together. Outside are all the people they want to protect. Someone has to blink first.

In this moment, they are the same. 

Cyrano: Translation, Adaption, and the 2021 Version

I have a lot of complicated feelings about Cyrano, both the historical figure and the character in the play by Rostand.  It is such a wild thing that Rostand turned the very likely gay man, a Poet, Duelist, soldier, misogynist, and one of the first science fiction authors (by some definition thereof.  It's complicated); into one of the great heterosexual lovers in literature.  It is a strange alchemy that turns a man's complete lack of interest in women into a grand secret unrequited love.

I fell in love with the play as a tween, before I knew Cyrano was a real person.  I fell in love with the writing the characters, the theme.  There are things in there that contributed to my survival.  Honor and panache were life and death to me for a while when I fought my own grim little war to keep self intact.  The words matter and it is a play where words are pretty fucking central to the design of the play and it’s themes.  I carried those words in my heart and forged them into armour, a piece of my identity.  

Later I'd see it from other angles.  The first time I saw it in French a whole other room of meaning opened up.  Roxanne is a précieuse!  I've course she is, but translation obscured it.  There were women's salons dedicated to poetry and intellectual pursuits and Roxanne is at the heart of it.  No wonder she fell in love with words.  Précieuses were feminist before the term was invented, and this too lies at the heart of things for me.

Which of course led me to seeing it all through her eyes, the way the men who claim to love her are lying to her and making decisions for her and fundamentally Wasting Her Time.  Decades of it, with their bullshit.  Honesty instead of illusion and paternalism, would have put the power of informed choice in her hands.  Maybe she'd have picked Cyrano; maybe she'd have told them both to fuck off.  Instead the men chose sacrifice for all three of them out of pride, lack of self esteem, cultural programming, and a fundamental love of narrative and poetry.  

The character Cyrano writes himself into a story in which he and thus all three of them can only be losers. What did he really think the end game was going to look here after they tricked her into marrying Christian exactly?  They knew what happened when Christian was left alone with her last time.  No once did they think about how she'd feel when she woke up next to a husband who couldn't talk to her or keep up with her intellectually, which is what she made clear over and over she wanted.

There is no happy ending once the lying starts.  There is no happy ending once the men chose narrative over reality, and that matters.

There is no such thing as a perfect translation as anyone who's translated anything can tell you. There is no one to one correspondence between words in even closely related languages.  Grammar can create it's own ambiguities as anyone who'd tried to translate Greek philosophy into English can tell you, likely in hours long rants with examples.  Translation tends to strip away essential context, like English translations turning "précieuse" into a simple jewel metaphor without whole books worth of cultural and historical meaning behind it.

All the issues with translation are geometrically worse if you are trying to translate poetry, because poetry is so incredibly intertwined with it's source language.  Ancient Greek poetry is meter based, sure, but it's also a language where changes in pitch are part of the beauty.  It's somewhere between chanting and singing and that's lost when you translate it.  Latin poetry is also meter dependent, but uses its grammatical particulars for effect as well as sometimes basically creating sound effects by the way the words and meter interact.  That is lost when you translate it.  So are the alliterative effects in things like Beowulf.  Shakespeare is written in meter and the plays periodically use that to convey meaning, like when Romeo and Juliet are making a poem in the balcony scene by finishing each other's lines and couplets.  

Anyone translating Rostand has to wrestle with trying to convey the inherent poetry.  It is a play about poets saying poetry at each other on it's surface.  How do you make that poetry work in English without sounding stilted, without losing the essence?  The translation task is itself a complicated puzzle with no right answer.

Now try to translate that to the screen, where you are not just dealing with translation, but adaptation.  While there are examples here or there with taking a play and putting it on screen that work, for the most part just filming a play isn't going to make a good movie.  The dynamic of live performance is lost and theater acting is very different from the sort of acting you get on film, where close ups and cuts within scenes and between scenes change so much.  People have written books on this too.  

In general, a play needs to me adapted to some extent to screen.  Locations, blocking, camera angles, acting style, etc. all need adjusting.  Will things need to be cut or added?  What time period are you setting the play in?  (Ex: The time the play was written in, the time it took place in if different, the current era, or some other when in between.) 

This sort of thing comes up a lot in Shakespeare adaptions, but you can also see it in things like “Roxanne,” which applies to the discussion here.  They had to do some pretty serious rewrites to make a play from the end of the 19th century about a man who died in the middle of the 17th century make any kind of sense in a 1980's setting.  Massive sections are gone, taking their meanings and themes with them.  The Rostand's a complex play with a lot going on thematically.  I never cared much for the movie Roxanne.  Other people loved it.  It's a matter of taste.  So many of the things that still speak to me were gone.

The adaptation of musicals in the 1970's or so on is also notoriously tricky.  Is the music diegetic within the world of the musical or not?  What level of realism vs. stylization to we want here?  Generally the more successful adaptations lean all the way in on the musical format and don't try to lampshade it at all, or they do what "Chicago" did and go all in on the musical numbers, but inter cut bits of reality.  The directors who are squeamish about making a musical tend to make tepid messes at best and complete botches at worst.

I've never seen the stage musical of Cyrano and literally didn't know that was a Thing until the Peter Dinklage came out.  I desperately wanted to see it in the theater, but given the givens, it was impossible.  I only just got a chance to see it.  I have thoughts.

I knew there would need to be serious rewriting even before I knew I was looking at a musical, because of the casting.  I knew they were going to have to completely redo the duel in verse, which is one of the more famous bits, so I was braced for that.  It was different, but it came within a hair's breath of working, and I think it pointed out how the musical aspect as a whole could have worked: They could have leaned right the fuck in one the verse format.

No really.

Yes, Hamilton is a whole complicated issue for a host of reasons, and doing Cyrano mostly in that style might have read as derivative, but the thing it, it would have been really fucking interesting instead of a mostly bland exercise for the bulk of the musical aspects.  (I will talk about the other song that mostly worked and the one that hit hard and perfectly later).  The duel had real edge to it.  Dinklage made it dark in a really exciting way.  The transition from the language of the play actor on stage, to Cyrano's poetic verbal attack to the semi-rap approach to the duel song made sense after the initial shock.  It worked.  It fit thematically, and honestly, the vocal style which made use of Dinklage's first rate acting skills in stead of forcing him to try to match singing skills with his co-stars was a good choice.  (his voice is certainly better than mine, but not on the level of the people playing Roxanne and Christian).  It lost entirely the words and thus details of the duel in verse, of course.  You don't get the sword as dance in time with the poem describing the fight down to the touches just before he delivers them, but you do get an interesting new take on Cyrano's character.  The problem is that they didn't lean in quite hard enough.  They didn't go whole hog, and you really, really need to do that to sell this both as a rewrite and a musical.

I was wildly disappointed to discover this was the only time the movie would do this.  They picked bland conventional songs for most of the rest of the film and couldn't really decide how realistic vs. stylized they wanted to be.  There were hints of homo-eroticism, which they decided not to play up.  They could have, since they were rewriting so extensively given us a bisexual demisexual Cyrano and I would have lapped that right up.  I’m not a purist and it would have been a call back to the historical figure the character is loosely based on without breaking the core plot.  Instead it’s just hints in the way some of the dancers are choreographed and shot.

They occasionally went full stylized dance number early on and if they'd been bold enough they could have leaned hard into that only to strip it away when the external reality gets increasingly darker in the later sections.  Maybe that was what they were trying to do, given the way they handled things once the men go off to war, but the timidity of the musical sections up until then, made it hard to tell what was deliberate and what wasn't in the design.  If they'd gone all out, the whole thing would have been crisper and hit harder.

I legitimately loved the way the scene between Roxanne and Cyrano went, even though some context got lost.  They acting was first rate, and the denouement was properly gutting.  Seriously, Dinklage's face acting is so good here it literally hurt.  As it should.  Roxanne's character is properly conveyed by both acting and text.  Alas, this is about as good as it's going to get for Roxanne.  By cutting down her role a bit they flattened her in the later sections, making her all take and no give, losing her playfulness, and perhaps her own panache (a word never spoken in this adaptation anywhere).  None of this is the actress's fault.  

It's a long, complicated play in the original and they cut out so much to make way for the bland musical number. Taking a chunk of Roxanne's personality out as well as a lot of what made this play matter to me as a kid on the men's side particularly when it came to honor and panache.  Like the movie "Roxanne" in 1987, they ripped out Cyrano's honor and panache along with most of the things that made Christian appealing in the later bits besides his face.  Basically, you lose one of the major themes of the play when you streamline this down to mostly just the love story.  You lose the richness of the three main characters and a lot of context. You get a bunch of songs I've already forgotten a couple hours after watching them in exchange.

The song in the middlish that kind of worked for me was the "I want More" Roxanne song.  It didn't fit so well stylistically with the rest of the film particularly, but it showed off the actress' voice and worked with the plot and the salon section.  The non-sung salon section is one of the few places Roxanne's character isn't chopped to bits.  The bit before the one on one with Christian shows her reading her own poetry and in her element.  The argument with Christian fits the Rostand reasonably well.  The problem is between the stylistic shift and the ways the back half of this adaptation are written just make this song loud character-wise in ways maybe it shouldn't be.  It emphasizes some things in a way that overshadows the more playful bits of her character.

The balcony scene is supposed to be a challenging exchange, revelatory of character, and also a playful game with words rather like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet mentioned above.  It's playing with the three main characters and in it's way deconstructing the Shakespeare version.  The Rostand balcony scene is playing with truth and lies.  It means entirely different things to all three characters because of the lies at it's heart.  It is a test and a game and a heart rending thing all at once.  The acting worked beautifully in the Cyrano version, and most of that complexity was there, but i think the song Roxanne had sung after the previous one on one with Christian unbalanced it somehow.  It's hard to explain.  It just... subtly suffered from the way this got adapted, and again I don't blame the actors or the staging or the way this was shot.  It's a more fundamental problem with the unity of the piece as a whole.  So many good components, but sewed together wrong.

The war section worked on it's own terms.  It really did.  This is the part of the play where the illusions and reality mingle in all sorts of messy ways, and a bunch of complicated things come out in the characterizations if done well.  The movie went hard realism with it for the most part.  The "Wherever I fall song" was legitimately the most memorable thing in here musically.  The whole sequence was very "Empty chairs at Empty Tables" in the best way.  Seriously, I was into it.  The acting kicked ass, it was beautifully shot, the music matched the tone.  Taken as a whole as it's own thing it worked.

I just missed... well the rest of it, which no longer fits with what they were doing with this adaption.  I get that it doesn't work anymore with what they are trying to do artistically, it just... This is one of the things that meant everything to that tween who read it the first time, to the teen who read it countless times, to the twenty something in love with a man who felt the same way about honor and panache, to the me who watches a version of this thing or rereads the play every few years who wants the full complexity of it all.  The streamlined version lets that go.  I absolutely get the why of it; I'm still going to be sad about not getting to see Dinklage perform some of the best speeches from the play, because when I'd heard they'd cast him, I wanted to see that so bad I could taste it.  Ah well.

Is this terrible?  Fuck no.  Seriously, I'll likely watch this again and just fast forward over the bits that don't work.  It is heartbreaking that one of Dinklege's best performances is embedded in something so uneven.  There are so many legitimately good scenes and sections in there.  I just which they'd added up to a whole that worked.  I wish there'd been a bolder approach to making it a musical or that they'd ditched all or most of the songs entirely.  One or the other would be fine.  With musicals you have to go big or go home.  You really have to commit.  It felt like everybody committed except the people doing the script and the director.  When the movie leans in to what it's doing, it works.  When it doesn't?  Eh.

And that broke my heart a little, because I could see what it might have been.

It always baffles me when people are legitimately mad that the underlying worldview of a commercially available piece of media is congruent with broad, mainstream values of its culture, rather than a radical rejection of those values. Like, first off, did nobody ever take 1 anthropology class, ever? There's a reason that a society's beloved story traditions are understood to serve primarily as a transmission of that society's commonly held values and sense of identity, rather than existing in ferocious opposition to those things. If a piece of popular art seems normie to you, of course it does? We literally study a culture's art to get a sense of what they understood themselves to be?

The idea that it would be okay if you were rich and powerful as long as you were a good person and that the problem with the world is that the rich and powerful are shitty people may not be your moral worldview, but I don't know how it could possibly be any more obvious that it is the moral worldview of most people living in the industrial First World, and that stories where the rich and powerful encounter moral tests and pass them, or stories where objectively good people ascend to the riches and power they are perceived to deserve, keep being made and keep being popular because people find stories that validate their worldview comforting.

I think there's an interesting open question about whether changes in art create or reflect changes in a society's worldview. I think I tend to favor the latter, because I've known enough artists to find the mythology of the artist as Thought Leader and Wayfinder somewhat uncompelling -- artists are just people, and like people, some are radically imaginative and boldly countercultural, but more often they are not particularly, or they are those things, but in a more idiosyncratic way than is easily reducible to an expression of political ideology.

What I have observed is that, in practice, there's almost no daylight between "the right art can change people's beliefs" and "the job of art is to prove that good beliefs are better than bad ones." The first one is -- I don't know for sure, but I think true conditionally, I think anecdotally people can remember "X piece of art changed me fundamentally," though not all people have that experience and certainly we don't know how to universalize it, there's no trick anyone's ever mastered to creating The Art That Changes People. It's contextual, it's subjective, it's the alchemy of the medium and the message and the audience and the moment it's encountered. It can happen, but most of the time it doesn't. So buying into the second part -- the idea that your work might create change, therefore it should strive to create change -- is hanging a whole lot of weight on a whole lot of maybes, most of them entirely out of your control as an artist. Ultimately it means going all in on propaganda -- on using the form of art to generate buy-in for certain beliefs that you hold -- with no guarantee that such a thing is even really possible. Real propaganda, when it does work, functions in a closed system along with other forms of material power and social control -- again, the art is expressing a world that already recognizably exists, so people feel that art as truthful and comforting. If you devote yourself to producing propaganda, can you summon the world it expresses into being? I don't know.

I do know that it makes perfect sense that most art isn't designed to do that. You take the pool of artists in a society, then you subtract the large numbers who are generally "normal" members of their society with mainstream values and a mainstream perspective, then you also subtract the significant number like me who don't really believe that art is particularly good at social engineering and are not interested in that project, artistically speaking -- already you have only a slice of the art being made that even could be considered "revolutionary" in the political sense. Oh, and some of those people are going to be "revolutionary" in ways you don't like or agree with, so the slice is smaller now. And now the competition for eyeballs begins -- will anyone even see this revolutionary art? Can they access it? Do they want to? Do they like it, once they see it? You have to assume the answer is going to be no in many cases.

It's a lot! It's complicated! There are so many choke points between the idea of "what we need is more art that challenges imperialism and capitalism!" and that actually happening -- artists that don't hold those values, artists who don't see that as a viable project for their art, the distribution of resources needed to get art out there (especially, though not exclusively, if you're moving through a profit-motivated system), the audience's choice to spend their Engagement Bucks on this instead of that, the quality of the art (whatever you think"quality" means, you've probably read or watched something that made you think, this is so earnest and well-meaning, god I wish I were enjoying it even slightly), the ability of the audience to extract the creator's meaning from the text, the willingness of the audience to do that, and then -- whatever that thing is, that unpredictable collision of forces that catalyzes a lasting effect.

You can see why it doesn't happen a lot. You can see why it's not a conspiracy that most art that makes it through that whole gauntlet is -- the ordinary kind of art, the kind that some alien anthropology teacher could hold up and say "Let's watch Red White and Royal Blue to learn how Anglo-American humans in the Late Imperial Era were thinking about statistical deviations in mating behavior and what they would have called sexual orientation."

(suffered a whim and drafted a new, wordier post for the fundamentals of my Weird Magic System Nonsense (1, 2) bc I never bothered convert pt. 1 from handwriting to text and it's ugly. I do not promise this is comprehensible, coherent or interesting.)

Magic is not a solved science. It's difficult enough trying to integrate the different models and techniques used by various magical traditions throughout the world even without trying to throw quantum mechanics into the mix. Furthermore, for historical and cultural reasons, much of the magical community remains reluctant to entertain certain investigations.

(Besides, wouldn't want to make yourself redundant, would you?)

I have vague and silly ideas about it, though.

RE: MATERIAL AND EXTRAMATERIAL SPACE

Magic, like material matter, most likely takes the form of particles and waves (which are the same thing ;) ). (No I do not have names and basic properties for the fundamental magical particles and I am not going to. I was considering charges of hot/cold and wet/dry despite these not meaning anything relevant to our macro understanding of these things, though.)

Now.

As a rule, material particles live in the mostly-flat three dimensional space we are familiar with navigating, and do not have the magical energy to leave it unless charged by an outside force.

As previously noted, magic takes place in six dimensions. Anything not on the material plane is on the astral plane, making it much larger and more confusing to navigate.

Similiarly, as a rule, pure magic exists Around the material plane and will only ever -- usually never -- be briefly visible or solid from our perspective. It can, however, bond with and influence both solid and magical particles -- in fact, essentially every molecule has magical elements. Magic is prone to loosely orbiting the material plane, though this effect peters out the further you get from it. (Have fun getting lost in the void.)

Purely or primarily magical entities include ghosts, curses, most daemons, and abominations such that how best to describe or categorise them is a lively debate.

RE: SOULS OR AURAS OR WHATEVER

All living things have some biological systems that extend into the astral plane. In intelligent species, this is what we call the 'soul'. Its anatomy is complex, fluid and poorly mapped, and can vary on an individual basis far more than our physical forms. Certainly, though, it is -- in most people -- capable of forming prehensile appendages, of absorbing and channeling magical energy, and of something resembling sight, touch and taste. Good passive defence against hexes correlates with less sensitivity.

Magic as an activity is, at its core, simply the ability to make use of said extramaterial Bits to achieve useful work. Our minds aren't really equipped to comprehend the full picture here, so anything sensed spiritually is generally subconscious or translated into an easier-to-digest form which varies person to person. This is also, of course, why mages are so often reliant on visualisation, symbolism and instinct.

Although they can naturally be pried apart temporarily, damage or extended separation is liable to cause brain damage and no doubt any other number of lovely things. Getting lost outside reality will generally render your body a vegetable, although there are some isolated reports of such examples going on to recover and develop new, different identities.

Typically, even when astral projecting, it's possible to maintain enough of an umbilical cord that this isn't a major issue. Total separation releases energy and requires energy to undo -- which is part of why one can harvest energy from animal and human sacrifice, as well as why young idiot mages occasionally need help getting back into their bodies.

I know maybe this might come off the wrong way. But in the age of reboot 495049 and indistinguishable slop streaming on four different syndicates and sexual objectification masquerading as high art and soulless derivative shit with a coat of shiny pseudo-feminism paint and many such other commercial- and brand-driven art sins, there really is a part of me that's like, holding onto R/WBY for dear life. I get it, their track record isn't perfect either, really what I'm talking about here is the artistic endproduct. As attached as I am to a particular endgame, that particular endgame is really attached to the identity of what makes R/WBY, R/WBY.

I think that's what makes the show more (generally) unique than it might otherwise be, which is no insult to the show, and certainly, we're in the time of so many more things being produced than they ever were historically (just the gross artistic/cultural product is so high), but quantity - and impetus for that quantity - isn't, of course, necessarily quality. That a production like R/WBY is and was possible on the scale it has been made is something that's a product of the technology and resources we've got at hand (and the art of animation is only a little over a hundred years old, and one of the most labourious; relative to the rest of history, this is very new).

Maybe that's part of why I am so particularly attached to it because I find that personally very valuable, in much the same way I am adamant about using Tumblr, even if in Tumblr's case it can just vanish overnight because of something completely out of my hands. I guess the same is true of R/WBY, to be fair, be it corporate-driven or artistically-driven and all the stuff I think is there, isn't really. Then I just wonder where I'm going to end up. There are a lot of books on the backlog, and it's not like everything is artistically defunct, but when most of the major media driving pop culture - that I want to be a part of! That's the whole point! - and culture in general actively resists the things I think are interesting and prioritises profit margin over everything else, my prospects are somewhat depressing. It's easy to say carve your own path, but we are social creatures, and I do actually care about the history of ideas and the way ideas interact with each other. Art and media in general is not really meant to be isolated that way.

It's easy to become cynical and just say well why bother? And I think those are the reasons worth bothering. If it's meant to be a communicative and conversational experience, that's why it's so natural to bemoan what commercial art is becoming. We want to be seen and interact; that's normal. When profit represents this visibility, that's when it starts to fracture.

I get that there are R/WBY detractors who would vehemently disagree with me but of course I don't fundamentally agree with their approach, and a lot of detractions of R/WBY are grounded in commercial, schlocky, senseless and trope-laden and self-inserting narratively cynical 'criticism' I find hard to take seriously, if not view as part of the problem I am describing here. As I have said before, when I see people who want R/WBY to become more commercial or more laden with personal fantasy bullshit or filled with clichéd and illogical storybeats, it is anathema to me on many levels I have outlined here. By no means do I think it's fucking Dostoyevsky: but I would say that it is competent and fun and and sincere and has its own identity. The fundamentals can be really hard to get. When the average television show or book I pick up struggles with fundamentals that means there's a problem. I'm not necessarily pointing the finger at individual writers - there is clearly a labour issue in most industries and socially and commercially a devaluing of the art of writing, and when it comes to publishing itself, publishing is self-selecting for what meets the bottom line, and the book industry is scrambling to make profits (but that's neither here nor there) - but I am pointing out the symptom of an issue.

It's not like I am necessarily in want of finding things to read and watch. There's a wealth of literature and media out there. But a lot of us have a desire to be a part of the evolving conversation and it's hard not to reflect on it without a sense of melancholy. If this sounds alarmist, I am speaking extremely broadly and general. There are independent artists and media everywhere - that is literally the point I'm making with R/WBY and is why I hope they can continue to preserve that in the capacity they have so far (I am aware their parent company's parent company's parent company's is Warner Bros., so like, these things are inevitable and why I ruminate, and arguably to some degree they're not at all as independent as they previously were) - but, if the language of visibility is expressed through who gets what stream and what airtime and what advertising and what role in the cultural conversation is a consequence of that, it makes you think. I don't think the market deciding is a pure market which in any way has the capacity to put a dollar value on cultural importance, and that's the problem. It's just ever-increasing profits and narrower and narrower artistic margins.

I don't mean to lament. It's the way of things. Equally I'd not want to be defeatist about it, though. What are the things I value? What are the things I can do to continue prioritising those? Am I just thinking about it too deeply? Hm, well, I think that's the point of art and media, lol.

Thinking again about this whole “donking the warhammies together like theyre dolls in a dollhouse” gig and transformative work that’s like that. Most conventional language fails to describe it—not really an alternate universe, not a crossover, definitely not mild enough to be called canon-divergent fanwork. I think moon came closest with “spinoff,” much in the way that something like Pathfinder is DnD but Pathfinder also Isn’t DnD.

Going back again to the kind of joyful irreverence with which young children take their favorite characters and keep what they like and then build on everything else in absurd and unique ways. Thinking about the ways that adults are allowed to play in socially acceptable ways, namely tabletopping and roleplaying. Being given some tools and told “go wild.”

I am not sure I would call it a fundamentally human form of storytelling, because I think it’s very much a product of being raised with pop culture and relating the way that we do to media from a young age, here in the West. But it very much invokes that childlike joy of creating.

I don’t have a thesis here I am just thinking very hard about linking our identities to media and being subsumed in it from day one. And also capitalism and copyright law. And how those things effect the ways that we allow and don’t allow ourselves to create.

This is part of why I want to be better about reconciling with my own ego and feelings of hurt when other people riff on me. The biggest reason is because there is almost nothing in Moribund I can claim “ownership” of; it is too rooted in the Sonoran Desert and human culture that doesn’t belong to me or any single person. But even if there were something I Truly Owned, I don’t think I am interested in relating to my work that way… Of course I want to be respected but I don’t think its very morb to think of it strictly in terms of copyright and ownership and author intent.

I still very much squirm at the idea of someone ripping Sadren’s likeness for their completely unrelated tabletop character or something*. But I’m also having the time of my life doing that with chief and reyes and sinuk and brun and morgan and ashe and roan and hei and len and… etc.

*lbr he would get a very big kick out of that don’ttakethisaspermissionbutdon’ttakethisassomekindofstatementeither

The power dynamics are Wildly different but it goes back to exhibit A.) donking the figs together to make them kiss.

I am satisfied that the morb characters are transformed enough that they depart wildly from their original roots (namely wildstar and the elder scrolls.) This is a sticking point of pride for me that any fanwork dalliances inevitably get sucked into the swirling toilet bowl that is Moribund. So, of course chief and reyes are a wild departure from that. Not only are they fundamentally incompatible with the premise of Moribund, but they’re also not really interested in being that different from 40k. But they are? But they aren’t. Only when it’s fun. The Endling Cult is surface-level indistinct from the Skitarii, but if you walk inside I taped plants to the walls and made up lore about how earth went to hell and is being rewilded by a fucked up fungus. Also they’re, like, in recovery now. And the machine animism is used for fun purposes, and not to paint them as backwards and superstitious.

Usually the impulse to take a wrench to a piece of fiction and Fix It and do Everything my Damn Self Around Here is just impetus for making original fiction, but this is… I dunno. It Is What It Is. Sometimes you Are something and you Aren’t something at the same time.

… I’m thinking of that bart and bobby comic now.

Also interstitial.

Ok, that’s probably enough. I am making a concerted effort not to edit this for readability and to let myself not have a thesis LOL. this is my internet journal and I make the stream-of-consciousness posts about the skitties.

If you read all that then thank-you and look at this pic of markus as compensation. In my forebrain I know he’s a mediocre little prince at this stage, but hindbrain says (:

Diploma in Jewellery Design Courses

A diploma in jewellery design is the important to comprehending this complex and exceptional field. It takes you on a journey into the world of art and workmanship. Comprehensive jewellery design diploma course highlight the pursuit of quality in jewellery style and provide intending designers the abilities and understanding they require to form their innovative vision. A recognition in gems setup is something besides a course; an innovative encounter has a look at the subtleties of style, gemology, and the imaginativeness of making wearable work of expressions. Interior the system of devices design verification course, students set out on a creative odyssey, having a look at the techniques and principles that identify this efficient market. A diploma in jewellery design has an efficient curriculum that stresses a comprehensive education. From the fundamentals of designhypothesis to the motivating parts of dealing with metals and gems, understudies immerse themselves in a broad understanding journey. All through the course, the attention is on included insight, allowing understudies to rejuvenate their methods and alter their workmanship. The opportunity to work carefully with skilled physical conditioning fitness instructors who are well-informed experts in the field is amongst the distinguishing characteristics of pursuing a Diploma in Jewellery Design. These fitness instructors direct students through the advanced details of design looks, bying far not simply technical capabilities nevertheless likewise market insights obtained from years of experience. This mentorship point of view is a structure and structure of Gems Design Confirmation courses, supplying understudies with a significant mix of theoretical understanding and certifiable application. The flexibility of capabilities sustain a Gems designCertificate course positions graduates for an advancement of profession crucial open doors. From managing acknowledged gems homes to producing entirely complimentary designstudios, the overall curriculum verifies that understudies are excellent to go with the dependable requirements of the shopping center. The Jewellery Design Diploma course is produced to cultivate not simply technical effectiveness nevertheless similarly an extensive gratitude for the cultural and historical parts of jewellery. Throughout the course, students tweak their design perceptiveness, examine various products, and develop a personal style identity that sets them apart in the competitive world of jewellery design Trainees get a more detailed viewpoint and are better able to expose their creative concepts by being exposed to a range of cultural outcomes and discovering more about design's history. The Jewellery Style Diploma frets this crossway of personalized and advancement, producing designers who are both rooted in customized and aware of modern patterns. All in all, a Recommendation in Gems Setup is an entrance to an existence where ingenious mind satisfies craftsmanship. Gems designCertificate courses supply truly aiming fashioners the possibility to deal with their capabilities, develop their creative vision, and start a compensating contacting the lively universe of gadgets designAs trainees search the intricacies of designhypothesis, included practice, and market mentorship, they occur not merely with a license anyhow with the ability to make gleam that resounds with the compound of their innovative expression.

Developing Knowledge and Faith: Investigating Muslim Schools in the UK with KDGB

Introduction

In the UK, establishments such as Knowledge and Deen Grammar School (KDGB) fulfil the need for a high-quality education that incorporates Islamic principles. This guide provides insight into the world of Muslim schools, particularly Islamic schools in the UK, and highlights KDGB's dedication to promoting a well-rounded education that integrates knowledge and faith. Go to the school's website at Kassim Darwish Grammar School for Boys to start this educational journey.

What Makes Muslim Schools What They Are

Islamic schools, commonly referred to as Muslim schools, are educational establishments that place a high value on incorporating Islamic teachings into the curriculum. This section gives a summary of the fundamental ideas that underpin Muslim schools, highlighting the significance of nurturing a generation of students grounded in both academic knowledge and Islamic values. KDGB exemplifies this commitment, embodying the essence of Muslim education in the UK.

The Fundamentals of Islamic Education

Muslim educational institutions, sometimes referred to as Islamic educational institutions, place a high priority on incorporating Islamic teachings into the curriculum. An outline of the fundamental ideas that govern Muslim education is given in this section, with a focus on the significance of raising a new generation of students who are firmly rooted in both academic knowledge and Islamic values. This dedication is best shown by KDGB, which represents the core of Muslim education in the United Kingdom.

The Importance of Islamic Learning in the United Kingdom

The need for educational institutions that address the particular needs of Muslim students becomes more and more evident as the UK gets more diverse. This section addresses the cultural and religious diversity within the Muslim community and examines the wider significance of Islamic education in the UK. KDGB's function as an organisation that caters to this diversity is highlighted, acknowledging the importance of creating an environment where students can flourish academically and spiritually.

KDGB's Distinct Approach to Islamic Education

KDGB stands out for its distinctive approach to Islamic education, blending traditional teachings with a modern educational framework. This section delves into the school's ethos, which emphasizes the holistic development of students, incorporating Islamic studies, Arabic language, and Quranic recitation into the curriculum. KDGB's commitment to academic excellence and spiritual growth reflects its unique approach to fostering well-rounded individuals.

The Comprehensive Curriculum at KDGB

A key feature of Muslim schools like KDGB is their comprehensive curriculum, which integrates Islamic teachings seamlessly with mainstream education. This section explores the diverse academic offerings at KDGB, including science, mathematics, English, and humanities, alongside dedicated courses in Islamic studies. The goal is to provide students with a robust education that prepares them for the challenges of the modern world while instilling a strong foundation in Islamic principles.

Advantages of Choosing KDGB for Islamic Education

KDGB offers a range of advantages for students seeking an Islamic education in the UK. This section highlights the school's commitment to small class sizes, personalized attention, and a nurturing environment that promotes individual growth. The advantages extend beyond academics, encompassing character development, community engagement, and a strong sense of identity for students. By choosing KDGB, students and their families become part of a supportive community dedicated to both academic success and spiritual fulfillment.

Conclusion:

Muslim schools play a vital role in shaping the educational landscape in the UK, providing a unique blend of academic excellence and Islamic values. KDGB, as a prominent institution in this realm, stands as a testament to the potential of Muslim education in fostering well-rounded individuals. Visit the school's website at Kassim Darwish Grammar School for Boys to explore the educational opportunities it offers and to become part of a community committed to nurturing faith and knowledge in the hearts and minds of its students.

Changing Your Thinking on the College Essay

The college essay or the personal statement are three words seniors dread hearing about. It gets the wheels turning and may usually lead us to this place of “what on earth am I going to write about”. You may feel that you are not interesting enough to write about for 650 words or you're not like this person who had a very traumatic experience in their life. That is all okay, because as I have learned and you will learn in this blog your story doesn't have to be this big thing, it can be anything that is unique to you. This idea was first introduced to me in Anne Kirkland and Ben B. Hansen's study and paper titled “How Do I Bring Diversity?”. As stated in the study "Diversity isn't just race or culture-it can be your love of science fiction, your ability to distinguish between all the varieties of pasta, your killer parcheesi [sic] game, [or] your Pied Piper-like rapport with small kids"(Kirkland & Hansen 104). The idea that diversity is just about the color of your skin or what racial group you identify with is completely tossed out here. This idea can feel limiting to some who feel they are too boring or not diverse enough. With now understanding what diversity can truly be it opens up Pandora's box of ideas to write about for your college essay. You can take something as simple as your love for a movie. Take that idea and expand on it and talk about how that movie helped you through something ro change your life. It doesn't have to be some big thing. The colleges want to hear about you and what you find important, not what you think will make you sound like this person whose life was altered by some insane event. Another thing that is a very important aspect of your college essay is for it to sound like you actually wrote. A mistake many people make is they think if they have some fancy college essay tutor write it that will get them in. The essay is all about who you are so it should be written in your own voice. I always knew the idea of voice or tone in writing was very important but I didn't realize just how much until I read June Jordan’s “Nobody Means More to Me Than You”. In this paper she speaks on the importance of teaching Black English to future generations of African Americans. As stated by Jordan “Because I had never taught anyone Black English and, as far as I knew, no one, anywhere in the United states, had ever offered such a course, the best I could say was I'll try”(Jordan 365). You may think what does Jordan teaching Black English have to do with me writing my college essay? In fact the fundamentals of Black English is all about one's own identity and speaking in one's own voice. This is what the college admissions essay is all about talking about who you are and you must do that in your own voice to communicate effectively. The final piece of advice I would like to give to you before writing your own college essay is to not get stuck on the words in the question. The question is made to trick you so don't get hung up on every little word in it. An example of this can be found in Warrens “Rhetoric of the College Application Essay” “Because the essay prompt asks applicants to describe someone and explain why that person is important, it is understandable why some students err on the side of too much description or too much exposition”(Warren 51). This is a prime example of a student being tricked by the wording of a common app question. They think they have to explain it so much when less is in fact more and when they are so detail oriented they are actually hurting their essay. This is just one of  the many ways the questions can trip you up so don't try to over analyze the question. Though the college essay is seen as the most daunting part of your college application, I hope after reading this blog it is much easier for you to write it and doesn't scare you as much as it did before.  

I Am Lonely Too

“I am lonely too,” perhaps the only pure and fully true words uttered by a character in Samuel R. Delany’s “Aye, and Gomorrah...,” a tale full of unreliable narrators and characters, all of them seemingly adrift, lost, alienated (no pun intended), and lonely. It’s not a story about sex. Rather, it is a phenomenally prophetic story that deserves a fresh look from scholars now that we have entered a new wave of culture in which gender, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity are all being redefined and understood in new ways.

There are a couple things that are utterly fascinating about this short story, both of them rather interesting ironies. First, this story became (in)famous, and a little controversial too, because of its subject matter, namely the fact that the entire story is about sex, seeking it, wanting it or not wanting it, wanting sex with certain individuals specifically because they don’t want it. Yes, interpersonal interaction is a complicated sexual patchwork in Delany’s tale. And it strikes me as deeply ironic that this story seemingly about sex, famous because it is about sex, is actually not about sex at all. It is not about closeness, intimacy, all that sex is supposed to be. Rather, it is about loneliness, distance from one another and from ourselves, a profound existential estrangement that leaves humor unfunny, sex a chore or a business, and food or other simple pleasure just a way to numb ourselves. No, it’s not about sex, not really. It is about the loss of everything human, everything that connects us. It is a bleak portrait of the future, indeed.

Okay, but there is another layer of irony in this story too. I first read this story years ago, before non-binary individuals and, asexual individuals, and the entire concept of gender-neutrality entered my own personal range of understanding the world. But today, of course, the full range of human experience is being better understood by all of us, including me. In Delany’s story, Spacers are gender-neutral, and they are fetishized specifically because they are without gender. Now, of course, Spacers are forced to be sterilized as children, and had no choice. This alone makes Spacers fundamentally different from the experience of most people who identity as trans, binary, gender-neutral, or asexual today in the real world. Yet, there is undeniably something prophetic about Delany’s imagining a world in which the genderless, the androgenous are the most desired, and there is something about his futuristic world that somehow resonates with the changing gender norms we are seeing today. I admit I do not entirely yet understand the lesson, though of course that will not stop me from offering some suggestions. Perhaps Delany’s story can be read as a warning about fetishization, a warning particularly relevant for the LGBTQ community and the trans community in particular, after all, fetishization inevitably contains a hefty dose of dehumanization, does it not? Or, perhaps, Delany’s story can be read about the need for human connection; perhaps he is saying that no matter one’s gender, even without gender at all, everyone needs real, emotional connections with others. This story makes me want to be a little nicer to my siblings, to go out of my way for a friend, to finally call my grandma, to remind my mother how grateful I am, to reach out to

someone being bullied, to speak up for someone silenced, basically to do the little parts of forging human connections that really are not so little at all.

Black History Month: More Nonfiction Recommendations

Love is the Way by Michael B. Curry

As the descendant of slaves and the son of a civil rights activist, Bishop Michael Curry's life illustrates massive changes in our times. Much of the world met Bishop Curry when he delivered his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Here, he expands on his message of hope in an inspirational road map for living the way of love, illuminated with moving lessons from his own life. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey, Love Is the Way shows us how America came this far and, more important, how to go a whole lot further.

The way of love is essential for addressing the seemingly insurmountable challenges facing the world today: poverty, racism, selfishness, deep ideological divisions, competing claims to speak for God. This book will lead readers to discover the gifts they need in order to live the way of love: deep reservoirs of hope and resilience, simple wisdom, the discipline of nonviolence, and unshakable regard for human dignity.

Four Hundred Souls edited by Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain

The story begins in 1619 - a year before the Mayflower - when the White Lion disgorges “some 20-and-odd Negroes” onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history.

Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith - instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.

Black Food by Bryant Terry

In this stunning and deeply heartfelt tribute to Black culinary ingenuity, Bryant Terry captures the broad and divergent voices of the African Diaspora through the prism of food. With contributions from more than 100 Black cultural luminaires from around the globe, the book moves through chapters exploring parts of the Black experience, from Homeland to Migration, Spirituality to Black Future, offering delicious recipes, moving essays, and arresting artwork.

Better Praise Saul

WARNING: Numerous fundamental SPOILERS about Better Call Saul below.

The only good thing about Better Call Saul’s finale is its fans will laud it slightly less incessantly.  I’m a huge part of the problem.  As an exhausting contrarian, I usually find myself reluctant to join in on any effusive praise of a pop culture phenomenon.  But the revealing fictional look at how people conduct themselves after their misconduct sticks with those who didn’t wait for the DVR to get each dose.  

The show hasn’t quite been adulated in every single internet corner, so here’s even more.  Thinking about ridiculously reasonable fictional occurrences helps rather zealous fans cope with how it’s over.

Consequences are forthcoming.  Waiting for Monday’s finale wasn’t just apprehensive because it was the last chance to visit a most compelling ominous universe: the fates of our favorites remained in question far beyond usual television concerns.  The final issue wasn’t whether a wedding would go off without a hitch or if a lead would take a job offer in a different city.  Survivability became a key issue on a program that had pretty funny moments considering the direness of its situations.

Avoiding a lecture is the best way to learn a subject.  Better Call Saul became the most moral show by showing those who attempted to evade consciences.  Not letting violators get away with anything is a far more accurate depiction than everyone constantly acting virtuously.  Legal entanglements are just the start.

Wondering who are we will stick with fans long after the broadcast.  Altered identities reflect a desire to change regardless of whether or not individuals are actually capable.  The track record of humans improving is an average that would get a major leaguer sent to Toledo.  Inherent characteristics keep appearing.  But the struggle to avoid being defined permanently has become our purpose.

“So you’ve always been like this?” asked the star of the first show to the prequel that followed.  Walter White’s question to whatever Saul Goodman was calling himself at that moment after the latter detailed an early scam was a question about the character, show, and nature of life.  The timeless topic of whether self-alteration is possible connects to how people respond after they’ve already done bad things.  What follows, to choose a random phrase, breaking bad?  Better Call Saul spent six seasons pursuing an answer.

Serving respective penances was as close to fulfilling as a show about scoundrels got.  Culprits self-imposed many of the agonies that followed them inflicting damage on others.  The capacity for guilt distinguishes those who do terrible things from those who are truly terrible.

A show with a propensity for skipping around to the confusion of anyone desiring a linear narrative fittingly ended on the theme of time travel.  Saul bringing up the phenomenon in the last episode reflects obvious regret about how depraved actions brought about bigger swings than crystal meth consumption.

Seeing how the queried view the question offered one last glimpse at the fascinating personalities fans adore.  Ultimate fixer Mike rolled his eyes before conceding regret while unlikely villain Walter fixated on the scientific impossibility until he rephrased the scenario so he could express his resentful motivation.  Both stayed true to character.

A copy or identical-looking editions of Time Machine by H.G. Wells fittingly made several appearances over the show’s course, including during the finale.  Saul’s fate brought to mind another literary classic, namely A Tale of Two Cities: his Sydney Carton-style sacrifice to protect Kim meant he ultimately decided to act nobly despite his shady past.

Jimmy/Saul/Gene/Viktor’s Cinnabon skills proved to be the most valuable.  The prequel went from Breaking Bad to baking bread.  Spending the rest of his days working in the prison kitchen showed how someone we admired despite committing countless violations against the law, other humans, and basic dignity had to be punished.  Somehow, a de facto life sentence even with good behavior wasn’t as horrific as possible.  There are worse places for a self-promoting defense lawyer than a place full of convicts.

Every outcome made sense.  From outlandish to obvious, Better Call Saul resolved storylines in a way that somehow seemed obvious in retrospect.  Even predetermined outcomes brought tension.  it is a prequel, after all.  Yet satisfying conclusions still followed.  Gus Fring’s shootout thrilled even though he was destined to survive.  Anyone who wonders how to make a righteous show where those who did terrible things yet contain sympathetic aspects should either watch or binge again.

Better Call Saul detailed what’s in store.  People don’t always do the nicest things.  The reactions are where questions of righteousness truly become interesting.

Is he the same person?  Playing a handful of characters was only the start of Bob Odenkirk’s role of a lifetime.  He donned garish suits in every sense.  A costume of a character initiated questions about whether the guy he played was playing someone else.

Like Walter before and after him in the show that came first about what happened next, Saul mistakenly presumed he could control circumstances.  Such arrogance is foolish while maintaining the best intentions and particularly ludicrous when dealing with murderous illicit narcotic retailers.

Cheering for people doing lousy things is a feat of fiction.  Even those with consciences in this glimpse of Albuquerque’s underside are renowned for having ample things they regret.  Viewers may be surprised to find something sympathetic about a naughty individual, like the person, or simply cheer for whoever’s the story’s subject.  We can appreciate components of Tony Soprano and Darth Vader even while avoiding aligning with the mob or dark side, respectively.

Analyzing individual scenes never feels unnecessary.  There are literally hundreds of moments from the show worth reviewing for candid glimpses of motivation.  I won’t bore with a list of particular comparisons, although I am tempted.  I’ll contain myself to once again noting Kim vainly looking for catharsis from telling Howard’s widow the truth was eerily similar to Mike doing the right thing by informing Nacho’s dad about his son’s fate. 

Hey: that was a prison mixer in the opening.  Seeking out clues makes viewers feel like club members even without a decoder.  Insider shows feature countless hidden details that consumers feel clever for noticing.  Sharp foreshadowing makes those who created them exponentially more so.  If you know Vince Gilligan, please tell him I think he’s the coolest.

The amazing people involved made two incredible shows about a high school chemistry teacher who decided to pursue a career as a drug lord hiring a suitably scuzzy lawyer.  A seemingly ancillary character deserved 63 episodes of his own, even if the titular character didn’t always remain in control.

Saul was often a jester in his own story who found himself at the mercy of the nefarious forces with which he chose to entangle himself.  Admitting his role in a string of felonious dealings was the first time he truly took control.  Engineering a stiff sentence after initially manipulating his way into a lenient one shows how assertiveness is meaningless without decency.  Short of using his talents to help those who merited it, a confession will have to suffice.

Two series and a movie is probably adequate time to spend with cartels and scumbag lawyers.  Like everything else with the series, producers knew when it was time for a coda.  Unlike Star Wars and Marvel movies where you’re begging a particular media conglomerate to stop churning out content fans presumed they’d endlessly applaud, the series ended at the right time.  I’d watch Mike, Gus, or Gene working for full shifts over eight episodes.  But the story concluding with proper fates was the best call.