Random Me

Tokusatsu Back To School Challenge

so a while ago, I saw this photo going around on tumblr:

at first, I thought this was photoshopped. I mean, "welcome new man in your life"? that feels like a translation error, or someone being silly on purpose.

but guess what! turns out, Frosty Slaw Man is real!

and soon...he will be mine. let's get cooking

This post is analyzing one specific aspect of Luffy. One connection that I feel like gets overlooked.

The meme is "Luffy arrives on an island, some kid gives him food, and he'll overthrow the local dictator". And that does happen. But WHY does it happen? Is Luffy just a benevolent hero-type? No.

This is an iconic line for a reason, it's important for demonstrating Luffy's character. He wants to throw parties, not do charity.

In fact, he rejects the idea of being a hero every chance he gets. After Wano, he chose to not take the credit for beating Kaido and let the populace think some random wandering hero named Joyboy did it.

But there's another part of this line that frequently gets overlooked, and that's what I'm focusing on here. The bit where Luffy says "I love heroes". He doesn't hate heroes, he loves them, Luffy looks up to heroes. He thinks they're cool, he just doesn't want to be one. But he still loves them.

Now, how does he characterize a hero? Someone who gives away food to other people.

That's why he fights so hard to save and liberate people after they give him food. It's not that he's being a hero for them, it's that he's REPAYING them because, by giving away food, they've shown themselves to BE HEROES, and Luffy loves heroes.

Recap Series: Lanfear

I don't feel people realise how completely normal it is in genre fiction to show men in their 40s to 50s as action and heroic figures. Meanwhile for women it is *crickets.*

There's an overrepresentation of women in their twenties, perhaps early thirties and then the representation absolutely plummets and you'll get perhaps a wise mentor figure or a mom, often destined to die too.

And when we do get the characters that are as varied as the men it's often with an edge of appeasement and making them more palatable to audience.

No, I want Seven Samurai, I want Conclave, I want LOTR, I want 12 angry men.

Something that can be really hard for people born after the Cold War (like myself) to grasp is that for a long time history was the ultimate reassurance against existential dread. Civilizations could rise and fall, empires could crumble, disasters could wipe out a hell of a lot of people, but human beings as a species, where never in any real danger of dying out. New countries would eventually rise out of the ashes of old ones, societies would change to be unrecognizable but they would still be there, religions, cultures ideologies etc might all die out but the people would still be around. History provided the ultimate comfort: whatever happened in our brief finite lives human beings as an group would eventually be fine.

But that changed after World War 2 and the invention of a little something called the atomic bomb. Suddenly human beings had the potential to destroy not just ourselves but all life on earth if things went wrong enough. For the first time in history their was no real guarantee that human beings as a species would make it, and in fact their was a whole lot of reason to believe based on the patterns of history that eventually that power would get used and human kind would destroy itself. That was the Cold War- two nuclear states who really really wanted to start blasting each other to pieces but couldn't without risking the end of life as we know it.

The tension between these two realities- the assurance of history that life will go on and the reality that human beings could in theory actually end the fucking world, is built into the core of Wheel of Time. The first lines assure us: time is cyclical. It's all happened before. It's all going to happen again. Human being will live out the same stories in endless variation, the same patterns will always reemerge. And the world has already survived one apocalyptic event: the Breaking, and come out the other side not doing fantastically, but still around. The world has been reshaped forever and whole eras of progress have been undone, but humanity remains.

But at the same time doomsday weapons with the potential to wipe out the species are everywhere. The Choden Kal can crack the planet open like an egg. Balefire burns apart time itself. A plague of madness is waiting for any old schmo to wander into it's den and carry it back outside so it can infect and destroy everyone. Their are all kinds of different big glowing red 'destroy humanity' buttons laying around in WoT just begging to get pressed. And in a way the Dark One is the ultimate version of that because that button has already been pressed. The Bore has been opened. Left alone humanity is fucked and everyone knows it. It can be delayed and pushed back, but never truly stopped, except by the intervention of destiny- the intervention of the Dragon. That's the core conflict of the series. Rand is struggling to stop a missile that's already been launched, prevent an end everyone can see coming. It's not just 'I need to defeat the big bad evil overlord or everything will be bad forever', it's 'I need to stop the Dark One or that's the end of human beings as an idea'.

What's especially interesting is that Jordan isn't even framing the Wheel/Pattern as uniformly good, because it's history and history is messy and complicated and full of contradictions and no easy answers. The Wheel, the Pattern, is not some force for righteousness. It's a neutral fact of existence. Not what's best or what's ideal- those are subjective and grounded in human understanding of the world- but what's necessary and what's true. To want to break free from history, to break the Wheel, is to want to break free of being human. That's what the Forsaken all truly want (as I have talked about before): to leave behind humanity, and their willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to do it. What that looks like and what motivates that desire is different for each of them but their united in that common goal, and they all either disregard the consequences of what it will mean or don't understand them.

The story of history is one of incredible suffering and amazing triumph: it's full of heartache and joy in equal measure. It's not fair or just or simple to understand, but it is a reflection of who we all are collectively. The fight to preserve the Wheel isn't a fight to preserve what is good or ideal, it is a fight to preserve what is human. Because as long as the story can keep going, we can have hope for tomorrow.

And Jordan promises right from the offing that their will always be a tomorrow. No beginnings. No endings. Just whatever comes next.

As we enter a period of history that is the most uncertain it's ever been in my lifetime, I can't help but I think of the incredible courage and strength it must have taken be staring down the barrel of nuclear armageddon and stubbornly insist that would be a tomorrow. The man wrote eleven of the best books ever made exploring this exact struggle- about never giving in to despair or pain, never buying into the belief that things are hopeless, that humanity sucks and we're all doomed.

and the Shadow shall lie across the Pattern of the Age,

and the Dark One shall once more lay his hand upon the world of man.

Women shall weep and men quail as the nations of the earth are rent like rotting cloth.

Neither shall anything stand or abide...

The Shadow shall rise across the world, and darken every land, even to the smallest corner, and there shall be neither Light nor safety.

And he who shall be born of the Dawn, born of the Maiden, according to Prophecy,

he shall stretch forth his hands to catch the Shadow,

and the world shall scream in the pain of salvation.

All Glory be to the Creator, and to the Light, and to he who shall be born again. May the Light save us from him.

Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow,

born once more as he was born before,

and shall be born again, time without end.

The Dragon shall be Reborn,

and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth.

In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people,

and he shall break the world again by his coming,

tearing apart all ties that bind.

Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us, and burn us,

yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle,

and his blood shall give us the Light.

Let tears flow, O ye people of the world.

Weep for your salvation.

On the slopes of Dragonmount shall he be born,

born of a maiden wedded to no man. 

He will be of the ancient blood, and raised by the old blood.

When the winds of Tarmon Gai'don scour the earth,

he will face the Shadow and bring forth Light again in the world.

For he shall come like the breaking dawn,

and shatter the world again with his coming, and make it anew.

Twice and twice shall he be marked,

twice to live, and twice to die.

Once the heron, to set his path.

Twice the heron, to name him true.

Once the Dragon, for remembrance lost.

Twice the Dragon, for the price he must pay.

Five ride forth, and four return.

Above the Watchers Over the Waves shall he proclaim himself,

bannered 'cross the sky in fire.

The Stone of Tear will never fall, till Callandor is wielded by the Dragon’s hand.

The Stone of Tear will never fall, till the People of the Dragon come.

Into the heart he thrusts his sword,

into the heart, to hold their hearts.

who draws it out shall follow after,

What hand can grasp that fearful blade?

Power of the Shadow made human flesh

wakened to turmoil, strife and ruin.

The Reborn One, marked and bleeding,

dances the sword in dreams and mist,

chains the Shadowsworn to his will,

from the city, lost and forsaken,

leads the spears to war once more,

breaks the spears and makes them see,

truth long hidden in the ancient dream.

He shall slay his people with the sword of peace, and destroy them with the leaf.

With his coming are the dread fires born again.

The hills burn, and the land turns sere.

The tides of men run out, and the hours dwindle.

The wall is pierced, and the veil of parting raised.

Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth.

There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death.

The unstained tower, broken, bends knee to the forgotten sign.

The seas rage, and stormclouds gather unseen.

Beyond the horizon, hidden fires swell, and serpents nestle in the bosom.

What was exalted is cast down; what was cast down is raised up.

Order burns to clear his path.

There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow,

for the land is one with the Dragon Reborn, and he is one with the land.

Soul of fire, heart of stone, in pride he conquers, forcing the proud to yield.

He calls upon the mountains to kneel, and the seas to give way, and the very skies to bow.

Pray that the heart of stone remembers tears, and the soul of fire, love.

As the plow breaks the earth shall he break the lives of men,

and all that was shall be consumed in the fire of his eyes.

The trumpets of war shall sound at his footsteps, the ravens feed at his voice,

and he shall wear a crown of swords.

Master of the lightnings, rider on the storm,

wearer of a crown of swords, spinner out of fate.

Who thinks he turns the Wheel of Time,

may learn the truth too late.

The Seals that hold back the night shall weaken,

and in the heart of winter shall winter’s heart be born,

amid the wailings of lamentation and the gnashing of teeth,

for winter’s heart shall ride a black horse, and the name of it is Death. 

And it shall come to pass, in the days when the Dark Hunt rides,

when the right hand falters and the left hand strays,

that mankind shall come to the Crossroads of Twilight,

and all that is, all that was,

and all that will be shall balance on the point of a sword,

while the winds of the Shadow grow.

He shall heal the wounds of madness and cutting of hope.

He shall hold a blade of light in his hands, and the three shall be one.

He shall bind the nine moons to serve him. The north shall he tie to the east, and the west shall be bound to the south. 

Twice dawns the day when his blood is shed.

Once for mourning, once for birth.

Red on black, the Dragon’s blood stains the rock of Shayol Ghul.

In the Pit of Doom shall his blood free men from the Shadow. 

His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul,

washing away the Shadow, sacrifice for man’s salvation. 

He shall break chains and put others into chains.

Fortune rides like the sun on high

with the fox that makes the ravens fly.

Luck his soul, the lightning his eye,

He snatches the moons from out of the sky.

When the Wolf King carries the hammer, thus are the final days known.

if you are on SSDI/Medicare, please contact the ACLU or an appropriate law firm to file a class action suit against the federal government for breach of privacy.

[image text: Attn: Treasury Secretary Scott Bressent granted representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system!

Response post: As a SSDI and Medicare client, I filed a request for a class-action breach of privacy lawsuit request with my state ACLU today. Please file in your state]

I will be contacting the Florida ACLU tomorrow but I also submitted a form to Morgan & Morgan, because the Morgans fuckin' hate Republicans, so it could work.

She indicated Tam's sword. "That seems to fit you, now, though I would like it better if it did not. You've grown, Rand."

"In a week?" He laughed, but it sounded forced, and she shook her head as if he did not understand. "Did she convince you?" he asked. "It really is the only way." He paused, thinking of Min's sparks. "Are you coming with us?"

Nynaeve's eyes opened wide. "Coming with you! Why would I do that? Mavra Mallen came up from Deven Ride to see to things till I return, but she'll be wanting to get back as soon as she can. I still hope to make you see sense and come home with me."

"We can't." He thought he saw something move at the stillopen door, but they were alone in the hallway.

"You told me that, and she did, too." Nynaeve frowned. "If she wasn't mixed up in it ... Aes Sedai are not to be trusted, Rand."

"You sound as if you really do believe us," he said slowly. "What happened at the village meeting?"

Nynaeve looked back at the doorway before answering; there was no movement there now. "It was a shambles, but there is no need for her to know we can't handle our affairs any better than that. And I believe only one thing: you are all in danger as long as you are with her."

"Something happened," he insisted. "Why do you want us to go back if you think there's even a chance we are right? And why you, at all? As soon send the Mayor himself as the Wisdom."

"You have grown." She smiled, and for a moment her amusement had him shifting his feet. "I can think of a time when you would not have questioned where I chose to go or what I chose to do, wherever or whatever it was. A time just a week ago."