#everything even the worst thing possible still has meaning and with critical reflection we can learn stuff

[the---hermit]

"we who study humanities are lucky because to us nothing loses meaning, of course we won't be reading a book from the 1400s the same way they did back then, but with time it acquired more and more meanings and we can still find things to reflect on today"

and with this random reflection this professor won me over

[drkarenhawk]

Empowering Individuals to Overcome Negative Thought Patterns with Dr. Karen Hawk

Negative thought patterns can hold us back in ways we don’t always understand. They can affect how we see ourselves, how we approach relationships, and even how we handle everyday situations. Whether it's a persistent inner critic, fear of failure, or feelings of unworthiness, negative thoughts can infiltrate every area of life, causing emotional distress and limiting our potential. Karen Hawk Gilbert, a psychologist based in Gilbert, AZ, specializes in helping individuals break free from these harmful thought cycles. Through her personalized therapeutic approach, Dr. Hawk empowers individuals to understand, challenge, and replace negative thought patterns with healthier and more constructive ways of thinking.

The Impact of Negative Thought Patterns

Negative thought patterns are automatic and often unconscious ways of thinking that focus on the worst possible outcomes, flaws, or limitations. They can include thoughts like "I'm not good enough," "I will never succeed," or "I always mess things up." These thoughts are often distorted, meaning they don’t accurately reflect reality, but they still have a profound impact on how we feel and behave. Dr Karen Hawk Psychologist Gilbert works with individuals to identify these patterns, helping them see that their thoughts are not facts, but simply habitual ways of thinking that can be changed.

Dr. Hawk emphasizes that negative thoughts are often rooted in deep-seated beliefs formed during childhood or through past traumatic experiences. These beliefs shape how we interpret events and can lead to a constant cycle of self-doubt, anxiety, and depression. By recognizing these patterns and understanding their origins, Dr. Hawk helps her clients take control of their thoughts and emotions, empowering them to change their internal dialogue.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a Tool for Change

Dr Karen Hawk Psychologist Gilbert often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as one of the most effective tools for overcoming negative thought patterns. CBT is based on the understanding that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all interconnected. By challenging negative or irrational thoughts, individuals can change how they feel and act. Dr. Hawk helps her clients identify distorted thinking patterns—such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, or overgeneralizing—and replace them with more balanced, realistic thoughts.

In her sessions, Dr. Hawk guides individuals through a process of self-reflection, helping them identify negative thoughts as they arise and teaching them strategies to challenge these thoughts. For example, if someone has the thought, "I always fail at everything," Dr. Hawk helps them evaluate the evidence for this belief and examine times when they have succeeded or overcome challenges. By engaging in this process, clients can learn to break free from the grip of negative thinking and develop a more realistic and positive outlook.

Challenging Core Beliefs

Often, negative thought patterns are tied to deeper, more fundamental beliefs about oneself. These core beliefs—such as "I am unlovable," "I am worthless," or "I don’t deserve happiness"—can be so ingrained that they influence every aspect of an individual’s life. Dr Karen Hawk Psychologist Gilbert works with her clients to uncover these core beliefs and evaluate how they impact their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Through her therapeutic approach, Dr. Hawk helps individuals understand that these core beliefs, while powerful, are not necessarily true. She works with clients to challenge these limiting beliefs by providing evidence to the contrary and encouraging them to adopt healthier, more empowering beliefs. This process requires time and commitment, but with Dr. Hawk's support, individuals begin to rewrite the narratives they have held about themselves, leading to greater self-compassion and emotional resilience.

Mindfulness and Self-Awareness

Another essential component of Dr. Karen Hawk’s approach is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of being present in the moment without judgment. When it comes to negative thought patterns, mindfulness can be a powerful tool for breaking the cycle of rumination. Dr. Hawk teaches her clients how to observe their thoughts without becoming emotionally entangled in them. Instead of reacting to negative thoughts with self-criticism or worry, individuals learn to acknowledge the thought and let it pass, without giving it undue power or importance.

By cultivating mindfulness, individuals can increase their awareness of their thought patterns and gain greater control over their reactions. This can be especially helpful for those who tend to engage in automatic negative thinking in response to stress or anxiety. Dr. Hawk’s mindfulness exercises encourage individuals to become more attuned to their thoughts and emotions, helping them respond in a more balanced and intentional way.

Building Positive Thought Habits

While challenging negative thoughts is an essential step in therapy, Dr Karen Hawk Psychologist Gilbert also focuses on building positive thought habits. It’s not enough to simply stop thinking negatively; individuals need to learn how to think in ways that are affirming and empowering. Dr. Hawk encourages her clients to practice gratitude, positive affirmations, and self-compassion as ways to cultivate a more optimistic mindset.

For example, Dr. Hawk might encourage individuals to start a daily gratitude journal, where they list three things they are grateful for each day. This practice helps shift focus away from negativity and fosters a mindset of appreciation and positivity. Similarly, she might guide clients to develop affirmations that counter negative self-talk, such as "I am worthy of love and respect" or "I have the strength to overcome challenges."

By making these positive practices a regular part of their lives, clients begin to rewire their brains to focus more on the good and less on the negative. Over time, these positive thought habits become automatic, making it easier to maintain a balanced perspective even during difficult times.

Creating Lasting Change

The ultimate goal of Dr. Karen Hawk’s therapy is not just to help individuals manage their negative thoughts in the short term, but to create lasting change in how they think and view the world. Through a combination of CBT, mindfulness, self-awareness, and positive thought practices, clients can gradually shift their mindset from one of negativity and self-doubt to one of empowerment, self-acceptance, and resilience.

Dr. Hawk also emphasizes the importance of self-compassion throughout the therapeutic process. Overcoming negative thought patterns is not about striving for perfection, but about learning to be kind and patient with oneself. Dr. Hawk helps clients understand that setbacks are a normal part of the process and that they don’t need to be perfect in order to be worthy of love, happiness, and success.

Conclusion

Negative thought patterns can be deeply entrenched and difficult to overcome, but with the right tools and support, it is possible to break free from them. Dr. Karen Hawk’s approach to therapy empowers individuals to challenge their negative thoughts, rebuild their core beliefs, and adopt healthier ways of thinking. Through her compassionate guidance, clients learn to become more mindful, practice gratitude, and embrace self-compassion, leading to lasting change in their emotional well-being. Whether you’re struggling with self-doubt, anxiety, or depression, Dr. Hawk’s therapy provides the support and strategies you need to overcome negative thought patterns and create a more positive and fulfilling life.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What if in the AU The non Alice cullens found out that she was almost killed by Edward, what would they do?

It's sad that I have so many damn AU posts in which Edward murders Bella it genuinely took me a minute to figure out which anon was referencing.

It's this one, by the way.

Well, part of the thing with that is Edward has Alice on his side. The Cullens aren't going to find out and it's not something any of them would ever guess either.

If rumor spreads, if the Cullens at some point visit Volterra and Aro takes Carlisle aside and goes, "You know, old friend, I don't know how to say this but... Your son murdered his wife." Then they won't believe it and Edward will easily poison the family against naysayers.

This would be believing the absolute worst of Edward and without irrefutable proof, they will not do it.

But Let's Pretend They Do

Maybe they catch Edward in the act somehow. His murder of Bella is pushing her into a beach bonfire in front of everyone. They rescue her just in time, even managing to save the leg Edward tore off and threw in there.

Well, if the other Cullens find out we end up here.

They'd be first horrified, confronted by this ugly, awful, truth and then the cookie crumbles and the coven falls apart.

Carlisle doesn't know who Edward is anymore, he doesn't know the truth about anything. Everything he thought he knew about Edward is a lie.

This is before Edward's met Aro, so he doesn't return to Volterra to find out the truth, but I do think he deliberately splits paths from Edward and offers Bella sanctuary with him.

Esme at first argues desperately against this. Edward must stay, he's unwell, he didn't understand what he was doing, they have to be there for him and help him heal. They can pull through this if they try.

Given Bella's life is on the line, Carlisle is unmoved, he's still leaving and Edward will not come with him. He's of course devastated inside, will need months to reflect on this and grieve over the Edward he's lost, but this choice has to be made.

Esme ultimately chooses to go with Edward, he needs her far more than Carlisle does, and is devastated at her marriage ending like this. Carlisle is as well, neither of them saw this coming, and yet looking at it in retrospect it seems obvious.

Rosalie and Emmett stay with Carlisle and Bella. Rosalie is appalled and horrified, in shock and not sure what to think, and still very conflicted over Bella. However, what Edward attempted was monstrous, and just as Carlisle doesn't know Edward anymore neither does Rosalie.

And where Rosalie goes Emmett goes. Emmett, for the record, thinks this is all extremely fucked up but doesn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. If you asked him, which no one will, then he... may have seen a few red flags here and there. Just a few, mind you, Edward was always crazy when it came to Bella. Not crazy in love, either, just crazy.

Alice also goes with Edward which means that Jasper goes with Edward.

It's the divorce of the century.

Given the point of this is to save Bella's life and get her as far from Edward as possible Carlisle forsakes a) all the money b) all the properties. They all have ties to the Cullens and it'd be all too easy for Edward to track it down.

Granted, Edward also has Alice with him, which would certainly help him along but Carlisle also doesn't want to make it ridiculously easy. More, beneath all of this, is a need to break away from Edward and the Carlisle Cullen of the last century.

Edward is very dear to Carlisle and this is a huge blow.

All the memories he has of making this coven, Edward was there for, excepting his few years of absence. Edward was the first person Carlisle turned, the first person to come back to the diet, and such an important person in Carlisle's life.

Now Carlisle has essentially lost Edward, and everything he's built over this century. The homes with so many memories, Isle Esme, all of it has lost something.

Better to forsake all of it and leave it all behind.

As a result, the Cullens 1.0 get to live on Carlisle's doctor salary, the Cullens 2.0 get all of Alice's money and all the properties. Rosalie misses those cars so dearly. God, why does Edward, who tried to murder his wife, get rewarded with the cars?!

The Cullens 1.0

However, I think the first thing Carlisle does is move the family abroad. This will help with the clean break, the leaving the Cullen coven as it was behind and trying to move forward. They change their surroundings completely and go to Europe.

And they probably do visit the Volturi as Carlisle, a) needs a close friend he can talk to about all of this, b) Aro might have insight Carlisle lacks into how this could have possibly happened and why Edward would even do this, c) it's probably best he stay off the grid for a little while to let the Carlisle Cullen name die down while Edward's being... Edward.

Also, more pragmatically, for all Edward has Alice's visions he surely would not be mad enough to attempt to kill Bella while she's in Volterra. This will give time for Esme, Alice, and Jasper to get through to Edward and perhaps figure out why this even happened.

Bella's an absolute wreck, flip flopping between denial and numb apathy. She joins Marcus in the garden to stare at the wall for hours while she contemplates the fact that Edward, the love of her life, tried to murder her.

She asks Marcus if Edward ever truly loved her.

Marcus tells her that she doesn't want to know.

Carlisle tries to offer Bella therapy, but he's in desperate need of it himself.

Aro tries to offer her therapy, and then realizes that Bella's even worse off than he suspected. Though he is delighted at her gift as well as Carlisle's presence, and he enjoys Rosalie and Emmett. He schemes to get the Cullens 1.0 to stay in Volterra, to convince Carlisle of the necessity of Bella's gift for the guard.

Also helping is that while in Volterra she has sanctuary from her murderous lover. This is a very convincing argument that will see them in Volterra for a good long while.

Emmett challenges Felix to arm wrestling competitions and, while still weirded out, fares the best out of the entire family.

The Cullens 2.0

Edward has a complete meltdown. It's all falling apart. He never foresaw this, never wanted this. Instead of saving Bella's humanity she now knows he's a monster, sees him as nothing more than a murderer, and now he may never see her again.

And Carlisle, Carlisle knows just what he is! Worse, he not only knows, but he rejected Edward just as Edward feared he would. This time, it's not Edward leaving the diet and Carlisle, it's Carlisle leaving him and Edward cannot return the prodigal son. He will never see Carlisle again.

He personally ruined Carlisle and Esme's marriage.

He ruined everything.

Edward likely decides to kill himself. He has failed in everything, ruined everything he touched, and he is a monster worse even than other monsters.

Bella is now a demon and it seems she will be forever, Alice hesitantly tells him that she's in Volterra now, where Edward cannot reach her.

There is nothing for him now and he never should have become this demon in the first place. If he could kill Bella, the finest thing in creation, the least he can do is kill himself.

He forces Jasper to do it.

He blackmails Jasper, if Jasper doesn't do it, then Edward will break every law the Volturi have ever made.

He will embrace the monster he is, the monster they all know he is. He will turn hundreds of humans into newborn and set them loose on human cities, he will turn dozens of children in their cribs, he will walk naked in the sunlight and let every human see exactly what he is as he eats their women and children.

He will cause such terror and desolation that the vampire world will speak of him for decades to come.

And if Jasper relies on Alice, well, he will be forcing Alice to outmaneouver and out think Edward at every opportunity. And she will slip up, because Edward will act on impulse or else she might not be looking in his direction at a critical moment.

They have forever and Edward is patient.

Jasper, of course, does it as he does all hard things in life.

He tells Esme that Edward went to live on a farm.

The Cullens 2.0 never hook back up with the Cullens 1.0.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi. You made a post a couple of days ago about how queer historical fiction doesnt need to be defined only by homophobia. Can you expand on that a bit maybe? Because it seems interesting and important, but I'm a little confused as to whether that is responsible to the past and showing how things have changed over time. Anyway this probably isn't very clear, but I hope its not insulting. Have a good day :)

Hiya. I assume you're referring to this post, yes? I think the main parameters of my argument were set out pretty clearly there, but sure, I'm happy to expand on it. Because I'm a little curious as to why you think that writing a queer narrative (especially a queer fictional narrative) that doesn't make much reference to or even incorporate explicit homophobia is (implicitly) not being "responsible to the past." I've certainly made several posts on this topic before, but as ever, my thoughts and research materials change over time. So, okay.

(Note: I am a professional historian with a PhD, a book contract for an academic monograph on medieval/early modern queer history, and soon-to-be-several peer-reviewed publications on medieval queer history. In other words, I'm not just talking out of my ass here.)

As I noted in that post, first of all, the growing emphasis on "accuracy" in historical fiction and historically based media is... a mixed bag. Not least because it only seems to be applied in the Game of Thrones fashion, where the only "accurate" history is that which is misogynistic, bloody, filthy, rampantly intolerant of competing beliefs, and has no room for women, people of color, sexual minorities, or anyone else who has become subject to hot-button social discourse today. (I wrote a critical post awhile ago about the Netflix show Cursed, ripping into it for even trying to pretend that a show based on the Arthurian legends was "historically accurate" and for doing so in the most simplistic and reductive way possible.) This says far more about our own ideas of the past, rather than what it was actually like, but oh boy will you get pushback if you try to question that basic premise. As other people have noted, you can mix up the archaeological/social/linguistic/cultural/material stuff all you like, but the instant you challenge the ingrained social ideas about The Bad Medieval Era, cue the screaming.

I've been a longtime ASOIAF fan, but I do genuinely deplore the effect that it (and the show, which was by far the worst offender) has had on popular culture and widespread perceptions of medieval history. When it comes to queer history specifically, we actually do not know that much, either positive or negative, about how ordinary medieval people regarded these individuals, proto-communities, and practices. Where we do have evidence that isn't just clerical moralists fulminating against sodomy (and trying to extrapolate a society-wide attitude toward homosexuality from those sources is exactly like reading extreme right-wing anti-gay preachers today and basing your conclusions about queer life in 2021 only on those), it is genuinely mixed and contradictory. See this discussion post I likewise wrote a while ago. Queerness, queer behavior, queer-behaving individuals have always existed in history, and labeling them "queer" is only an analytical conceit that represents their strangeness to us here in the 21st century, when these categories of exclusion and difference have been stringently constructed and applied, in a way that is very far from what supposedly "always" existed in the past.

Basically, we need to get rid of the idea that there was only one empirical and factual past, and that historians are "rewriting" or "changing" or "misrepresenting" it when they produce narratives that challenge hegemonic perspectives. This is why producing good historical analysis is a skill that takes genuine training (and why it's so undervalued in a late-capitalist society that would prefer you did anything but reflect on the past). As I also said in the post to which you refer, "homophobia" as a structural conceit can't exist prior to its invention as an analytical term, if we're treating queerness as some kind of modern aberration that can't be reliably talked about until "homosexual" gained currency in the late 19th century. If there's no pre-19th century "homosexuality," then ipso facto, there can be no pre-19th-century "homophobia" either. Which one is it? Spoiler alert: there are still both things, because people are people, but just as the behavior itself is complicated in the premodern past, so too is the reaction to it, and it is certainly not automatic rejection at all times.

Hence when it comes to fiction, queer authors have no responsibility (and in my case, certainly no desire) to uncritically replicate (demonstrably false!) narratives insisting that we were always miserable, oppressed, ostracised, murdered, or simply forgotten about in the premodern world. Queer characters, especially historical queer characters, do not have to constantly function as a political mouthpiece for us to claim that things are so much better today (true in some cases, not at all in the others) and that modernity "automatically" evolved to a more "enlightened" stance (definitely not true). As we have seen with the recent resurgence of fascism, authoritarianism, nationalism, and xenophobia around the world, along with the desperate battle by the right wing to re-litigate abortion, gay rights, etc., social attitudes do not form in a vacuum and do not just automatically become more progressive. They move backward, forward, and side to side, depending on the needs of the societies that produce them, and periods of instability, violence, sickness, and poverty lead to more regressive and hardline attitudes, as people act out of fear and insularity. It is a bad human habit that we have not been able to break over thousands of years, but "[social] things in the past were Bad but now have become Good" just... isn't true.

After all, nobody feels the need to constantly add subtextual disclaimers or "don't worry, I personally don't support this attitude/action" implied authorial notes in modern romances, despite the cornucopia of social problems we have today, and despite the complicated attitude of the modern world toward LGBTQ people. If an author's only reason for including "period typical homophobia" (and as we've discussed, there's no such thing before the 19th century) is that they think it should be there, that is an attitude that needs to be challenged and examined more closely. We are not obliged to only produce works that represent a downtrodden past, even if the end message is triumphal. It's the same way we got so tired of rape scenes being used to make a female character "stronger." Just because those things existed (and do exist!), doesn't mean you have to submit every single character to those humiliations in some twisted name of accuracy.

Yes, as I have always said, prejudices have existed throughout history, sometimes violently so. But that is not the whole story, and writing things that center only on the imagined or perceived oppression is not, at this point, accurate OR helpful. Once again, I note that this is specifically talking about fiction. If real-life queer people are writing about their own experiences, which are oftentimes complex, that's not a question of "representation," it's a question of factual memoir and personal history. You can't attack someone for being "problematic" when they are writing about their own lived experience, which is something a younger generation of queer people doesn't really seem to get. They also often don't realise how drastically things have changed even in my own lifetime, per the tags on my reblog about Brokeback Mountain, and especially in media/TV.

However, if you are writing fiction about queer people, especially pre-20th century queer people, and you feel like you have to make them miserable just to be "responsible to the past," I would kindly suggest that is not actually true at all, and feeds into a dangerous narrative that suggests everything "back then" was bad and now it's fine. There are more stories to tell than just suffering, queer characters do not have to exist solely as a corollary for (inaccurate) political/social commentary on the premodern past, and they can and should be depicted as living their lives relatively how they wanted to, despite the expected difficulties and roadblocks. That is just as accurate, if sometimes not more so, than "they suffered, the end," and it's something that we all need to be more willing to embrace.

[firelxdykatara]

gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.

atla fandom? we need to have a chat.

(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)

under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao

there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.

i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)

to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.

and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)

this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).

it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)

calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.

not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!

abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.

and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.

zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.

he says it himself:

Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.

ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.

[linkspooky]

Dabi the Villain, Touya the Victim

That no.1 title you’ve always wanted is a lot of pressure, huh? Has your heart been purified with all the praise you’ve received from the public? Does your newfound vigor as a father figure to your children, make you feel like you’re developing a ‘familial bond’ with them? You seriously thought if you could keep your eyes towards the future the past would forget itself would you? It’s time for someone to give you a life lesson - (RHA SCANS). 

The past doesn’t forget. Dabi doesn’t forget. Scars may fade with time but Dabi’s won’t, they’ll only get worse and worse as he continues to burn himself using his quirk. Dabi arrives at literally the single worst time possible, to throw salt in old wounds, and stick his fingers in them for good measure. It’s clear, Dabi’s revenge is just going to make things worse for everyone, including his family, including Shoto.

However that begs the question, if not now, then when? This was always going to happen. I don’t mean ‘abusive families have to air their dirty laundry in live television’ I mean, there was always going to be some consequence to what Endeavor did to his family. Dabi is a monster, yes, but in-story he’s a monster of Endeavor’s creation. Dabi wouldn’t even exist without Endeavor’s direct actions. He’s a reflection of every bad thing Endeavor has done up until this point and everything he needs to face. The number one hero created the number one worst villain. 

1. The Shadow

Dabi is more than just a murderer, he’s also a jungian archetype. The shadow is a jungian idea that states on the whole we are not as good as we think we are. In fact, we actually might be much worse. 

The shadow is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

To put it into simple terms how we perceive ourselves, what we are aware of the light, is the conscious mind. 

Everything else, everything we’re unaware of, what we’re ignoring, how we might come off to others, the unintended consequences of our actions is the shadow we cast. This isn’t something I”m making up it’s directly referenced in story. 

The approach of the villains have multiple times been compared to shadows stretching and growing deeper, this is Jungian symbolism. 

The emperor of Fallen Light, the villain that Dabi himself sent after Endeavor said word for word “His shining Light beckons the dark.” This is a story idea that’s been set up for awhile, Endeavor’s light is a false light. He is a good hero, the best there is currently, but calling him a hero requires ignoring everything he has done to his family. Most of the people who call Endeavor a hero have no idea what he did to his family, and even most of his family is just trying to forget and move on with their lives. 

Endeavor’s redemption so far has been a false one, it hinges on everybody else wanting to just move on with their lives, and everyone else being forgiving towards his actions. I’m not saying that Endeavor’s wish to atone isn’t genuine, I’m saying the story has been setting up an arc of false light. We are shown the light of his actions, his desire to redeem himself, his desire to be a hero that Shoto can look up to, and we ignore the shadow. 

There’s a duality to Endeavor. Technically there’s a duality to everyone. There’s the light, and the dark. To put it in less abstract terms, even within good intentions there can be hidden bad intentions. A person who gives to charity might just be doing it to make themselves feel like they’re a good person. There’s even an episode of friends about this, Phoebe gets in an argument with somebody that even “charitable” deeds like giving awaay money can be a little selfish because helping others makes you feel good about yourself, so she tries the whole episode to find a truly selfless action. 

There’s a duality to Endeavor, there are two Endeavors, Endeavor the hero, and Endeavor the bad dad. They are both Endeavor in the end, he is all of his good actions and bad actions. Focusing only on his bad actions, or only on his good actions would be an incorrect reading of his character. 

What I’m saying is, this idea has been building up in the story for a long time. This duality in Endeavro’s character. He is a hero capable of villainous things. However, the public, Endeavor’s own family, and characters like Midoriya and All Might only really ever see the good side to Endeavor’s actions. They all look at the light, at Endeavor the hero. 

For the most part Endeavor has not been confronted by consequences for his actions. Yes, Endeavor tries to listen when Natsuo expresses his hurt feelins. Yes, Endeavor realizes his family might want to live without him in the house. However, as opposed to Dabi who has been hated as a villain by all of society for the crimes he has committed, Endeavor is still getting the hero treatment. The worst Endeavor has to come against is his own children’s hurt feelings at his actions. Even then, Natsuo has somebody like Fuyumi constantly pushing him to try to reconcile with his father. He has Endeavor violating his boundaries, and hugging him. Rather than criticizing Endeavor for what he did, most of the criticism falls on Natsuo for not moving on. Like, what Endeavor did is just something that happened in the past that they all have to move on from. He still has the respect of his peers, he still has his position in society, he still has the title of Number One Hero. 

This happens because everybody looks at Endeavor, and they’re all blinded by the light, they only see his good deeds and not his bad ones. This isn’t a post debating whether or not Endeavor earned or deserves his punishment, or whether require punishment, it’s just an argument that there are consequences to your actions. That’s Dabi. He’s consequences. Everyone around Endeavor has been repressing their feelings. The Todorokis are asked to repress their personal hurt over the past for the sake of moving forward. 

 Dabi is the shadow that Endeavor casts. There is a villain in Endeavor’s actions. As long as Endeavor ignores that, as long as he keeps seeing himself in only a heroic life, that villain is only going to manifest elsewhere. In a story, repression does not work, simply ignoring your problems does not work. If a character ignores their shadow that shadow manifests and takes on a life of it’s own. 

Dabi is a response to those repressed feelings. Not only is he a repsonse to them, he’s an inevitable result of them. No child abuse doesn’t usually turn abuse victims into murderers. That’s also, not the point. The point is this is a story, Endeavor tried to just bury the past, and Dabi, rose from the grave and said “No, I don’t think the past is better off buried. I think we should talk about it.” 

2. The Monster

“People like to think their actions are free from guilt but they’re not-” This is once again more Jungian symbolism. People want to believe they are on the whole good and well-intentioned people. People want to believe they are better than they are. 

Dabi has been hurt. Burned even. While Endeavor only looks at the best of himself, his heroic intentions, his ambition to become number one, Dabi sees not only the worst in himself, but the worst in his father, the worst in everyone. 

The reason people identify with Dabi is not because they think murderers are sexy (but let’s admit it they are) it’s because Dabi as a character is made up of hurt feelings. He has been burned. He doesn’t forgive the people who burned him. He represents a darker, rawer side to human emotion. Sometimes abuse doesn’t make people poor innocent victims, it’s just pain, sometimes nothing constructive or good comes out of it. Sometimes it’s just damage, to you, and everybody around you. 

Putting aside the fact that he’s a murderer (hey I acknowledged it, look at me acknowledging it), Dabi is also written as a character to embody the worst parts of abuse. The negative emotions that Dabi feels are real. Dabi’s hurt feelings are just as real, as the good intentions and desire to forgive that family members like Fuyumi and Shoto have. Neither is more valid, more real than the other. 

However, everyone looks at the light, and the shadow is ignored. Dabi’s hurt feelings haven’t even been acknowledged. Not only that, but the feelings of all people hurt tend to get swept under the rug for the sake of “everyone else.” 

When Shigaraki says Heroes have turned a blind-eye to the suffering of others, he doesn’t mean that heroes don’t try their hardest to save people, or that heroes never save people. He’s saying that the characters in the story are repressing their issues instead of confronting them, and repression makes people ignorant instead of being able to truly address the problem. Now, connect that back to Dabi, who is the shadow of his father’s actions. 

Toya himself is someone in the story who has been “forgotten.” We see Fuyumi praying at his shrine, as well as Endeavor, Natsuo can’t bring himself to forgive Endeavor because of his feelings over Toya. Yes, yes, yes. However. One, the number one hero had his son die and nobody even investigated into those situation. Two, nobody even talks about it nowadays. Shoto brings up his older brother’s death at the dinner table like it’s just an awkward subject he’s uncomfortable talking about... not you know, a tragedy. 

And I’m not saying that Shoto is in the wrong here. I don’t mean to demonize his response. I’m suggesting he’s repressed. He’s repressing his hurt feelings about the brother he never got a chance to meet, his two other siblings, his mother, all of that to continue to work with his father because he wants to move forward with his dream, and probably because if he tried facing all of that it would hurt a lot. 

However, it’s still the tendency of all the characters on the heroic side to repress things, and look at that from Dabi’s point of view. His own family members don’t even recognize him because of a few scars on his face. 

It’s lonely. At the very least it’s lonely and serves to isolate Dabi in his grief further. Push him to believing that he really did die alone and was going to get forgotten, that his survival is just a hindrance that prevents everything in his family from moving forward. Dabi is made up of hurt feelings, and Dabi without prejudgice takes out those feelings on other people. However, Dabi is still a person. The same way Endeavor is both hero and villain, Dabi is both villain and victim at the same time. Dabi was a ten year old who didn’t really do anything wrong who died, after being ignored by his father his whole life. Dabi is, a zombie that’s barely alive, and constantly killing himself with his own quirk. Dabi’s pain is impossible to ignore, and yet he feels ignored. 

The difference between Dabi and Endeavor is that Dabi is living as a villain, he acknowledges that he is a villain. He’s the only one in the league to show genuine remorse for killing people, crying a tear of blood and trying to dissociate his own feelings of guilt and the past from himself to the point where he remarks he’s going ‘crazy’ thinking about it. (That doesn’t make it okay, but since when is anything ever okay with the Todorokis?) You have a character who knows exactly what he did wrong, confronting a character who for the most part still sees hismelf as a hero. 

Endeavor still sees himself as a hero in this situation. Dabi lives confronting the worst parts of himself (well he’s barely alive but still), he’s stich together scar tissue, and is covered in wounds. He is everything bad that has happened to him. But still, Dabi is at least AWARE. 

Beyond all the other plot details, what he’s doing right now is confrontation of something that Endeavor was previously ignorant of. It’s the crux of Dabi’s speech to Endeavor. What he’s saying is pointing out the dark side of each of Endeavor’s good actions. 

Endeavor becomes the number one hero, which means he finally gets all the praise, acclaim and honor he always thought he was entitled to. This doesn’t mean that Endeavor’s wish to become strong to serve as a supporting pillar for the nation was a lie, but what Dabi says also isn’t a lie either. It’s the hidden dark side of Endeavor’s actions which Endeavor does not acknowledge. 

Endeavor wants to move on and act like a father to his children like twenty years after the fact, and coincidentally this also happens right after being handed everything he wanted on a silver platter. Dabi is pointing out, the negative sides of Endeavor’s actions. Aren’t you just being nice because you’ve gotten everything you’ve wanted now? Don’t you just think you deserve to have your children love you too? 

Dabi is confronting Endeavor with the dark sides of actions so he can no longer remain blind, and he is literally in story an agent of the cosnequences of Endeavor’s actions. Dabi became a villain because Endeavor had a son for the sake of his own selfish desire to get stronger, cast him aside, and then even let Toya die. Even if Endeavor wants to move past that, Toya doesn’t. Because for Toya that defines his whole life. Toya was burned by either Endeavor’s flames, or the fire of his own quirk that Endeavor trained him to use. The reason Toya doesn’t move on is because for him, he can’t move on. Toya is dead. Toya died. Toya is some kind of zombie. And if not a zombie, Toya is dying. All because of what his father did to him. And he gets to see his father move on with his life. Everybody else gets to “Get over” his death with Toya, who is left behind. 

Toya is a frankenstein’s monster, created by Endeavor, abandoned by Endeavor, let loose by Endeavor on the world. In the real world this would be a far more complicated question, but in a story, especially one that references frankenstein directly, Dabi is quite literally “Endeavor’s Monster” running amok. Dabi would not even exist if not for Endeavor’s actions. 

Dabi doesn’t even know why he existed, or why he was brought into this world, because for him, all there’s been is pain. Pain enough to turn his hair white, and burn half of his skin off. 

The same way Endeavor only sees the best of himself, Dabi only sees the worst of himself, the shadow. However, the difference between them is Dabi has grown up mostly in the dark. 

Dabi is a reaction to circumstances. You can say it’s a bad reaction. You can say it’s not justified. You can call him a monster. You’re probably right, but still Dabi did not create those circumstances, Endeavor did, Dabi can only react to them. Dabi is a consequence to everything Endeavor did to his own family. It might be entirely Dabi’s choice how he reacts, and true Dabi did not have to choose to be a murderer, but Dabi also never deserved to be put into this situation in the first place. 

If Dabi is responsible for his reaction, then Endeavor is equally responsible for creating him. It’s something Endavor has to confront, because this ignorance, this represion, it hurts people. Think of Endeavor’s actions a few chapters ago. 

Shigaraki is another victim of an abusive father, just like Dabi. Shigaraki is also lashing out, and trying to bring down the hero society, just like Dabi. Endeavor right up until Dabi arrived, and revealed himself thought he was completely justified in wanting to kill Shigaraki for the sake of everyone. Up until five minutes ago, Endeavor only saw himself as the hero, the light, meant to vanquish the king of evil. 

Endeavor was perfectly willing to kill Shigaraki up until five minutes ago, because he only saw him as a villain. 

And now suddenly Dabi showed up and it got all complicated and shit. However, it was always complicated and shit. The villains were never objectively bad. The heroes were never objectively good. The world wasn’t as black and white as Endeavor saw it. 

Now Endeavor’s good action (saving all of hero society as number one hero), requires something most people would consider to be objectively bad (putting down his own son). 

The personal investment that Enji has in both Toya being his own son, and also his guilt over what he’s done to his family in the past, now make it impossible for Dabi to be just another villain. 

Except Dabi is Shigaraki. Dabi is Shigaraki, Himiko, Twice, Shuichi (not compress tho he’s just in it for the drama of it all). The villains in this story are trying to draw the attention of the heroes to problems within society, problems that have negatively affected them, so they can be fixed. You can’t fix something if you’re blind to it. You can’t deal with something by ignoring it. Dabi’s confrontation isn’t only inevitable, it’s necessary for moving forward. 

The shadow isn’t destroyed or ignored, it’s accepted, because in the end it’s a part of you. You are both everything good about you, and all of your flaws at the same time. Living as a fully rounded person means acknowledging that. 

Enji’s development is about putting his selfish sense of entitlement aside and learning how his actions have impacted others. Here is Dabi, dancing around going “Hey, Dad, this is how your actions have impacted me. Look at my burns.” 

Confrontation is good. The hurt feelings that have been repressed should be expressed. 

 If Enji had continued on being ignorant, he would have unknowingly torched his own son, and just seen him as another one of the villains. Isn’t that the worst possible result? Beyond hero and villain, isn’t a father killing his own son tragic? 

Dabi’s personal revenge is wrong. His decision to lash out is wrong. His obvious desire to kill himself, and then his own father isn’t just wrong, it’s unhealthy. Trying to burn yourself alive and be a martyr to a cause because you think there’s no good reason for you to be alive, and you’re going to die anyway no matter what you do - is in fact a bad coping mechanism. 

Dabi is wrong, however, ignoring what happened to him is also wrong. It’s all wrong. Trying to repress those hurt feelings is just as unhealthy a coping mechanism, as lashing out with them. 

Dabi is all hurt feelings, yes, he can’t forgive and he can’t forget, but maybe some things like the past shouldn’t be forgotten. Rather than ignoring the past you can acknowledge it, learn from it,  reincorporate it into who you are now, because the past is just as much of a part of the present as Dabi’s burnt skin and scars are a part of who he is now. 

[alwaysabeautifullife]

How did you learn so many languages. Do you have any tips?

Yes!!!! Yes I do!!!

Everything I wish I could tell myself before starting my language “journey” lol:

🦩Dont be intimidated

Don’t be intimidated, specifically by doing listening or speaking practice. I know in the US (or for most English speakers), when we hear someone that speaks perfect English but merely has an accent we think “they don’t speak English”, but from experience this mentality is not shared with other languages. When you know even a little bit of a language or can’t speak it very well, natives speakers are really really encouraging. I think since we view not being 100% fluent without so much as an accent, as “not knowing any of a language” we are hard on ourselves and give up pretty easily.

🦩Listening practice is as important as studying vocabulary and grammar

When you listen to native speakers talk, you are training your ear even though you don’t understand it. Listen and listen, eventually your brain stops picking out English words that aren’t even there, but rather, starts to catch patterns in the language (for example, the same words sticks out to you over and over).

🦩Set realistic and doable goals or you’ll get discouraged and quit

If you are a busy person, make small goals to fit language study in. Don’t tell yourself that you need to master _____ within a week. Instead give yourself 15 mins of reading in the evening, and 25 mins of language listening in the morning. It’s also easier to add the language into stuff you do on a daily basis anyway. For example if you are religious, find your prayers you pray daily in the language you are learning.

🦩learn to read the language first (obviously this tip might not be applicable for character based languages like Chinese)

I know everyone says “immersion is the best and most important part of language” but honestly, a lot of our native speaking knowledge comes from our literacy education. When we are taught how to read, it’s through reading we can discover new words through context. It’s also easy to pick up new language reading since it’s available anywhere, where immersion is only available when you are surrounded by native speakers. The first thing I do is learn how to read and write the language, then the entire language becomes accessible to me.

🦩Spend time perfecting the sounds of the language that are most difficult for you

The vocal sounds of a language is the foundation of a language. I know we are all impatient and want to simply learn as many phrases as possible as fast as possible, but if you get down the unfamiliar sounds of a language that don’t exist in English, you’ll have a better foundation of the language and your speaking and listening will be better from the very beginning. So take the time to practice those weird sounds by looking into the position of the tongue and where the sound comes from, from the chest to the lips. Look into how tense the mouth is, how much air comes from the lips, what the sound is like next to other sounds. When you master this speaking becomes more instinctual and it’s easier to pick up the language.

🦩Search YouTube, google, Instagram IN THE LANGUAGE YOU ARE STUDYING.

Don’t search “korean music” or “korean kids tv” or even “korean vegetables” in google. Just translate how to say them in a translator app, then copy and paste them into the search bar. This way native korean information, videos, posts will come up. For example, if you’re in the mood for some horror comics, and want to read/watch them in the language you are learning, go to the translator app, and figure out how to say them, then search it. It works way better, even if the translation isn’t correct or more natural, you’ll still get the information, posts, and videos you want to see.

🦩Find ways to practice speaking the language (I use HiNative) and don’t be discouraged by corrections.

Getting corrected does not mean you’re wrong, corrections are the most useful part of learning a language. If you are the type of person who is sensitive to criticism, you need to remind yourself corrections are NOT criticism. They are NOT a reflection of your progress, they are NOT you failing! You will always be corrected as a language learner and the sooner you are gentle with yourself in learning the sooner you will learn more. Get those first corrections out of the way, allow yourself to butcher pronunciation, get corrected for the first 10 times, let it sting a little and move on. Eventually you will be begging native speakers to tell you every little detail in where you went wrong!

🦩Tv and Books seems to be more useful for immersion and listening practice then music does

So far in my experience music is its very weird and abstract, and the things said in music aren’t really useful in speaking? It’s good for gathering vocab, but if you want music listening practice that’s music based try searching for rap in that language, although obviously you’ll be picking up a lot of informal language in music/rap. Tv shows however are typically how people really do talk, so turn off English subs and just listen! Books are really useful for learning new vocabulary, but sometimes written language is different than spoken (often), although when you speak it the way you’ve learned from a book the worst you’ll sound is “formal and poetic”.

🦩Look up “insert language you are learning phrases and words that aren’t useful or correct”

There so many programs and books that teach you phrases you’ll never use or that are only appropriate in very specific situations. I don’t know why language programs do this, but learning which ones are weird or only in specific settings before you start learning really helps. Chinese Especially does this...like I learned so many phrases and words that natives will never use and have no purpose???

🦩Know the different subjects of learning a language and which apps to use for that

Everyone uses Duolingo, but this app alone won’t make you speak a language. Duolingo and Memrise are great for memorizing vocab, but, is it vocab that in the context of your reading and listening practice? Are you learning words you are hearing and reading all the time? Duolingo is a lot of fun but I feel like the vocab is so broad and it doesn’t go deep enough into the language. Feel free to use it at first to get used to the sounds of the language, but try using flash card apps like quizlet or Anki instead where you can write down and study words you are hearing constantly. Memrise does have actually study sets for many language books and lessons! So you can study words you are hearing in specific programs and books which is pretty useful in regards to vocab.

There obviously is more than just learning vocab. What about grammar, listening practice, speaking practice and reading? If you are wanting to use primarily apps find out which apps are available for your language. Here is an example of the apps I use for each subject. Be aware some languages are not available on them.

Vocab: quizlet, anki

Grammar: books (printed or kindle), YouTube grammar lessons, websites

Reading: books (printed or kindle), beelinguapp, instagram (posts that have text), Netflix/YouTube with both subtitles in the language you are learning and spoken in language you are learning, epic app

Writing: just use paper and pencil/pen

Listening: audio books (beelinguapp/epic/kindle/YouTube), tv and movies (Netflix/YouTube etc with no English subs), conversations on YouTube (search in language you are studying, don’t search “Spanish conversations” or “Japanese conversations”)

Speaking: HiNative (pretty much all I use since it’s all languages, quick, and you get immediately answered and corrected by native speakers), get friends in language you are learning through lots of apps

Translator: it’s really hard to find a good one, most of them are really weird so only use them for words and the most basic or simple phrases and sentences, otherwise use HiNative to ask native speakers directly, or ask people on the apps that connect you to native speakers

🌱I should note that for talking to native speakers I only like HiNative, since it’s built to NOT be a form of social networking at all. It’s not personal in anyway, and there’s no way to private message or speak to other users outside a asking questions publicly. The people on there are only about learning or teaching a language, not usually making friends. I’ve found the sites that are built to make native speaking friends aren’t useful to me personally, as most of the native speakers are either dudes looking for a woman to date or people wanting to only practice English with you, so they wasted a lot of my study time. People who are willing to help you learn are there, but it takes time to filter everything else out. If you would find it helpful to make friends by all means use them but I don’t really use it myself.🌱

You don’t want to really study EVERY SUBJECT every single day (unless you have the time). It can get really overwhelming, and you don’t really absorb information that if you are just cramming. While I would say it’s good to read and listen daily, spread subjects out over the week. Grammar on Monday and Friday, vocab on Tuesday and Thursday. Take one day to review all of what you’ve learned all week. Pick a day you have the largest block of free time. Bi-weekly works fine too.

I have an old post on how I organize my study time for multiple languages: https://alwaysabeautifullife.tumblr.com/post/182817883372/what-do-you-use-to-learn-your-languages-im

🦩Write sentences daily of everything you’ve learned (no THIS I RECOMMEND DAILY)

Write as many as you can. Use all the grammar you’ve learned, the words you’ve learned, everything! Write them in your notes and submit them to be corrected in HiNative. The sentences they correct, put them in flash cards!

🦩It’s ok to abandon languages you aren’t passionate in

So you’ve learned to read the language, and you know basic phrases, and now you just don’t want to do it anymore. If you can’t think of any reason to maintain it and don’t know why you are studying it, learning some of the language is good! Fluency does NOT need to be everyone’s goal. You can hold a conversation, and that’s good enough for you. Feel free to try out various languages, there will be one or some that really are your passion, it’s fine to have the goal of fluency in those and conversational in others.

Don’t abandon languages however because you feel discouraged. Discouragement is just a bump to get over, when you train your brain to maintain study habits through the days you feel discouraged, you make it habitual. Habits are harder to break and abandon! Evaluate your reasonings for wanting to speak a language, and your reasons for abandoning them if you want. Don’t let difficulty, disorganized, discouragement, or poor time management get in your way!!

🦩With all that said it’s ok to take breaks

It’s ok to get overwhelmed and take breaks from language learning. If you can still maintain what you’ve learned by listening to music in your language or staying connected in some way that’s good, but the “you’ll loose a language” isn’t entirely true. I’ve taken year long breaks and refreshing what I learned previously is pretty easy! Your brain really does go “oh yeah I do remember this!” when you’re studying information you studied years ago.

🦩Be gentle with yourself

Be gentle with yourself. People that claim to be fluent in 6 months are selling something or want to be an influencer. Don’t compare yourself to them. Language learning even for natives is a lifetime education. It’s not something you do for 6 months then stop. It’s continual and that looks different for everyone (yes native speakers included). Don’t bother watching YouTube videos on how to learn in 10 mins or 3 months, you’ll only get discouraged about your own amazing progress and all the work you’ve done.

🦩Plan your “can you say something in it” phrase now

This one is just for fun but after hearing you are learning a language the first thing you’ll get asked is “oh cool you speak (insert target language here)? Can you say something in (insert target language here)?” It does not matter what level of fluency you are at, you will absolutely forget the entire language and your own native language when you are asked this because it sends your brain to another dimension. So think of some funny phrases to say to people who ask, master them, then when they ask what they mean you can have a laugh. Other wise you will say something stupid of jumbled words (my go to was ‘we women are fruit’ for some reason thanks brain you’re incredible) you’ve learned that don’t belong in a sentence, or even worse you’ll run a blank and you’ll just look at them like:

🍳👄🍳

So think of inside jokes to tell your friends, funny phrases, even goofy insults! Memorize them and tell them at your friends and family to torture them because they can’t escape sound waves! It’s a good way to memorize the language but also to become confortable speaking it!

Please excuse any errors I don’t wanna go over my mistakes so pretend u can’t see them 🙈

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

[repentantsky]

5 People Who Should Not Be in The Gaming industry

Our choice of entertainment, when we choose video games has nearly endless potential, with works that are inspiring from varying genre’s, to varying resources, and many people who work on these games are as inspiring as they are instrumental to the industry’s continued growth and success, these 5 people, here are none of these things, and are nothing short of a detriment to it. Whether it’s because they broke the law, multiple times, clearly don’t care about the people who work under them, or are simply unable to tell their fans the truth, here are 5 people, who simply should not be here. Be warned, I may trigger you one way or the other depending on where you stand, and I’m not sorry about it if you want to defend these losers. Oh and, one final note, my lists aren’t usually ranked by how important an entry is, or in this case, how messed up they are, but rather by how much I want to talk about them, so do keep that in mind. 

5. David Cage. 

David might be the least unworthy person on this list, depending on how you look at it, (I think he’s one of the worst people here, but you do you) but he’s also possibly the biggest A-hole. Running the company Quantic Dream, most regarded for their game Detroit: Become Human, the company, Cage, and another key member have been under investigation for years, for mistreating their employees, and violating contracts. Most famously with Elliot Page, back before when he was known as Ellen Page, as the game Beyond: Two Souls, did have a fully nude model that for a time could be hacked to be visible in the game, which was a violation of the contract Elliot had signed at that time. Other accusations include, bullying, anti-woman rights shown in the work place, and harassment of employees, namely of the female variety. This isn’t mere speculation either, as Quantic Dream did a few years back, lose a case against a former employee in court, and if one thing most people have learned about abuse or mistreatment of others these days, is that if there’s one case, there’s probably more. While things have been quiet on this front in light of COVID-19, the investigation, is still on-going. 

4. Randy Pitchford. 

The laundry list of offenses this man has committed should have seen him end up in jail, but money talks, and he settled his crimes out of court. What crimes did he commit you ask? Let me see if I can remember everything. He, supposedly had child pornography on a flash drive, for which he was acquitted, with that never being shown in a way that can be confirmed or denied, he refused to work with Troy Baker on Borderlands 3 who played Rhys in Tales from the Borderlands, because Troy has joined the closest thing to a union within voice acting, which meant Pitchford would have had to follow certain guidelines, that he wasn’t willing to, he stole 12 million dollars meant to be bonuses for employees of Take Two after completing Borderlands 2, and the opening funds for Borderlands 3, which he seemingly used to pay off his court case, he assaulted Claptrap’s original VA when they were still working together, and refused to bring him back in Borderlands 3 because he wouldn’t do the voice for free after leaving like he had before, he refused to pay a musician for work done on Duke Nukem Forever, and while not nearly as heinous as the rest of these, refuses to acknowledge that any criticism against Alien: Colonel Marines is legitimate. So yeah, complete A-whole. Kind of makes you wonder how people like this stay in the industry, instead of in jail where they belong.

3. Todd Howard.

Todd Howard, is to put it lightly, a habitual liar, and often tries to play up his good guy persona while lying through his teeth. Fallout 76 is a key example of how he can lie, as just about everything he said about the game when it was announced, was untrue, though he’s used to that as he also lied about Skyrim, Fallout 4, Elder Scrolls Blades, Elder Scrolls online, seemingly favoring single player games while 76 was still not known to the public, the list goes on. Todd Howard, for as bad as his voice is for it, is basically the hype man for everything major Bethesda does, and usually seems to be in charge for finding a fall guy when his lies don’t come to fruition. It’s not really shocking per-say that he lies, but man, it would be nice if he could just tell the truth, if anyone could believe anything he says. Never, have I heard so many untrue things said about a game from one man, and yet, you literally have to question everything that comes out of his mouth, and assume all of it is overplayed nonsense, because Bethesda seemingly pays him to try and make us believe that he can say anything of factual value. But alas, he can’t, he even lied about the paid mods controversies Bethesda tried to pull, both times they did it, and nothing came of it. Someone who cannot seem to tell the truth, should not be in this industry.   

2.  Marcin Iwinski. 

This may not be a name instantly recognizable to many, but Marcin is co-founder of CD Projekt Red, and is it’s most prolific liar. Unlike other CEO’s who have people below them spread lies so fans go after them instead of the guy at the top, Marcin has been Cyberpunk 2077′s voice in a manner of speaking, as he was the one told all of us the lies surrounding the game. He tells people what to say about the game, so he’s responsible for the lies made to retailers, fans, and of course Sony and Microsoft, and he even tried to get ahead of a piece written by Jason Schreier, with a non-apology that was actually more damage control for the horrible release of Cyberpunk 2077. While he’s by no means the only person who has committed these sorts of acts in this industry, his recent example of what a CEO will do to save face for his company, regardless of much BS there is within, makes him a prime target for fans to show those who run massive game companies, that lying to people for years, be it about how a game is running, or how it’s being made, shout out to all those people he said weren’t crunching, and then trying to downplay it when we found out, is not okay. Letting people like that go, only incites more to do the same. 

1. Andrew Wilson. 

Yet another name you might not know off the top of your head, Andrew Wilson is the CEO of EA, a company that is so corrupt under his watch, that they tried to break Belgium gambling laws because they just...thought they were above it? I don’t know the whole story there, but I do know that EA, under his run as CEO, clearly thinks it can do anything it wants, and feels like they can lie about whatever they choose, regardless of how poorly it reflects on the industry, or how it hurts smaller developers just trying to turn their passion into a career. Killing off beloved studios like Visceral games, Black Box Studios, Origin, and Playfish to name just a few, EA has become the killer of studios, and every time Andrew Wilson’s face is on screen, smart people began to worry. Mr. Surprise Mechanics himself may not have committed any crimes that we know of (aside from again, breaking Belgium law because he thought he could get away with it), nor has he lied his way to success in the public, but killing off studios loved by all in order to force everyone under his employ to mainly focus on games as a service, a move that is more harmful than good in the industry, is cause enough for him to be forced out. 

And that’s my list, what did you think? It’s not often someone actually calls people out in this industry, and I honestly think more people need to do it so there’s some of that. Let me know if you can think of anyone else who deserves being a swift kick out the door, reblog this if it interested you, and feel free to leave a note. 

[wandaposting]

wandavision: the criticisms post

tl;dr: i liked the show, but there were aspects that were annoying and dumbfounding to me and here’s the post that covers That ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

this was gonna be my comprehensive wandavision review post that had both cons and pros, but the cons kind of ran away from me lsdfjs SO YOU’RE GETTING THIS FIRST. if you find my views diverging from yours in either direction, you’re valid, please don’t shiv me. this is just how i Feel in a somewhat shitposty (as per usual) format. 😔

the big con list:

the way wanda’s actual villainy gets brushed away by the narrative: or specifically the way wanda strolls past the people she mentally tortured and traumatized for a week to apologize to monica, who then goes “gg girl i would’ve done the same :)” and then wanda leaves that entire mess—that she caused—behind her and bails lol. that scene is a microcosm of my problems with this show’s attempt at portraying what the creators have described as her ““complexity””. they want us to feel sorry for her, but not in the way that we can sympathize with walter white while still acknowledging he’s broken bad. rather, this show seemed to want to paint her as more of a victim than the people she victimized. they still want her to come out looking heroic and triumphant and rewarded from her journey with new powers, a new superhero outfit, a new superhero moniker. and that falls flat when you realize she’s basically been a self-absorbed asshole throughout the course of this show. she was confronted no less than four times, and told point blank that a few thousand people were suffering under her control. that is not something we can excuse with depression and denial. that means that at multiple times she is making at least the subconscious choice that her happiness matters more than the wellbeing of her meat puppets, which includes children, across the span of a week. i don’t see monica rambeau “doing the same thing.” the fact that they made her say it while the townspeople glared on in miserable silence just rubbed me the wrong way. if they really wanted to make her responsible for westview, while also wanting her to come out looking remotely good, they needed to invest in a much more substantial redemption arc for her than “i didn’t mean to, gonna go self-exile now.” or even holding everything else constant, they could’ve delivered a more nuanced take where westview was in dire straits before her arrival. the westview she initially drove through already looked economically depressed, so i don’t know why they didn’t just follow through with this. but they could’ve made it so that by granting herself happiness and prosperity, she could’ve spread that genuinely throughout the citizens. instead of hex vision waking norm up in horror, you could’ve had him begging to be put back under. that way, her decision to accept and face reality head on could also be reflected by the people of westview. where everyone, perhaps aided through wanda’s mind link, decides they shouldn’t let fantasy consume themselves at the expense of improving their actual reality. there’s still moral ambiguity, there’s still mistakes being made, we can still side-eye wanda for doing the equivalent of drugging people, but at least these npc’s would've gained something from wanda blundering into their lives. but no she made 3 thousand people suffer through the literal plot of Get Out, giving them life-long ptsd and trauma with nothing good, and i think that’s bad. if she has more haters after this series, i can’t even blame them. but apparently she has a shit-ton more fans after this series, so... OH WELL, IT IS WHAT IT IS sdkfjkls

TYLER: which brings me to the thought that, if this show had hayward acting like a three dimensional human person with the bare minimum intellect required to run SWORD ... instead of an incompetent jackass scooby doo villain ... a lot of us would be spamming #HaywardWasRight. tyler hayward might legitimately be the worst villain mcu has ever produced, like edging past malekith. is he supposed to be an analogue to real world tr*mp appointed deputies? unlike agatha, he’s not even entertaining to watch. he’s the ted cruz of the mcu, which is bizarre when he was introduced as the strict but not particularly vexing or unreasonable successor to maria rambeau in episode 4. it ended up feeling extremely contrived how the show attempted to aggressively signal us with “hayward bad” and “wanda good, actually” through the lens of monica, darcy, and jimmy. it’s like they had to make hayward come across as Extremely Dumb in order to make wanda come across as the more sympathetic party, when she was the one doing [gestures vaguely at wall of text above].

and SPEAKING of agatha: she also ended up being the exact kind of simplified reductive cackling “gimme ur powers wanda” evil super witch that i didn’t want her to be. that’s all.

the theorybaiting: i didn’t care about the lack of mutants/doctor strange cameo (lol what happened, charles murphy)/multiverse/blue marvel/reed richards/mephisto/nightmare/chthon (altho we did get the darkhold wink wonk) so much that it ruined my experience. ralph bohner was disappointing, but i got over it. my issue here is more that they deliberately baited a more interesting story than they delivered, and i think they shot themselves in the foot with that. the first 7, even 8 episodes had set up this atmosphere of mystery and intrigue, only for them to wrap up all these questions with the most boring, uninspired answers possible. question: what does hayward want and what is he up to? answer: hayward is simply a stupid dingus. question: who is agatha harkness and what is she up to? answer: an evil witch who just wants to steal yo powers. question: who is fietro? answer: lol boner. question: was it wanda all along? answer: yes, but no it was actually agatha, but actually yes, but she didn’t mean to and is kind of sorry and now she’s gonna fly away so have fun with your ptsd, westview. ????????? yeah they could have ... done some of that better.

the pacing in the end: i remember when they said it was gonna be “around 6 hours,” and we got 4 and a half hours of actual content instead... they should have given us that extra 1 and a half hour to flesh out the finale. the sitcom portion was fun, it feels like the sitcom portion was prioritized in the writing room, and that the overarching narrative beyond the sitcom suffered to accommodate it. when it came time to break away from the format, they stumbled. so in the beginning, there were segments that felt authentic to the era but were fairly critiqued as “dragging on” ... and in the final episode, we had... the final episode. monica and wanda’s ending conversation felt unsatisfying, both wanda’s apology and monica’s acceptance of it rang particularly hollow [also gestures vaguely to wall of text above]. the appearance of white vision should have had much more of an impact on ... everyone, especially wanda. except the dude just dips and no one mentions him ever again. i feel like hex vision being revealed as the the vision that had always been ~part of her should have also had more ... fleshing out. darcy and jimmy basically ended up having no arcs in this show. they served as stand-ins for the audience, and because they were written to feel sorry for wanda (in a situation where she was absolutely deserving of more scrutiny), the audience too gets manipulated toward doing so.

there’s probably more to add but i’m running out of brain juice BUT THOSE WERE THE BIG ONES STORY-WISE

[certifiedceraunophile]

Hiya!! Caroline Forbes for the character game, if you would be so inclined.

I am so so sorry I'm so late to this ask, but I'm hoping better late than never :) [like seriously I’m answering this a month late I am sooooo sorry!!]

First impression

My first impression of Caroline was during that scene at the grill, when she was drunk and like "I try so hard and nobody goes for me, nobody wants me, everything is a competition and I try so hard and NEVER win" to bonnie, and honestly calling myself out here, but I hated her in that moment simply bc I could see wayyyyy too much of myself in her, and I felt sort of vulnerable seeing such a blatant reflection of my deepest insecurities just sitting there in front of my eyes, but at that moment I wasnt looking to self reflect or read into it too deeply [I was there for mindless cheap entertainment] so my first basic impression I believe was to absolutely scoff at her, and I was like, I already dont like this chick, but also I was expecting her to be sort of a watered down regina george character, bc that's how they introduced her in terms of how she behaves w elena, she was supposed to be the shallow passive aggressive vapid bitch who's friendship is performative at best and toxic at worst, the way she treats Bonnie as a convenient sound board and replaceable company did not go unnoticed by me, these parts I can say I did not relate to, however I saw them for what they are, which is the makings of a headbitch mean girl who's imminent “untimely” death will not be mourned so much as alluded to constantly as a warning call and/or a cautionary tale for all the nameless dangers that are lurking in their godforsaken town, basically I expected her to die as a plot-pusher and then her death + the aftermath would've served as a convenient point of mild conflict between stelena to you know add to the "forbideness" of their relationship, so at this point all my first impressions were exactly what the writer's intended and honestly I was just waiting for her to die since it was clearly just a matter of time before that happened, but at the same time, I might not have been completely aware of this during that period of time, but the grill scene struck a chord with me and stayed with me quietly for a very long time, months later after reading several ffs and metas I can pinpoint that I was basically stuck between finding solidarity w Caroline in having the same insecurities as the character, and hating the fact that I had those insecurities at all to begin w and how vividly they were shown to me through Caroline without any restraint or cushioning.

So yeah you could say her character itself left me both vulnerable and seen at the same time so it was an odd mix of finding comfort and empathizing with this fictional character, but predominantly I was feeling.....agitated and hiding away from the truth that she represented to me; these two opposing feelings conflicted with one another constantly leaving me in a place where I mostly did not know if I liked her at all and if I didnt like her was it because she was written to be a mildly irritating side character [that I couldnt be bothered to emotionally invest in] or just because I saw too much of myself, especially the parts of me I dont particularly care for, in her to ever like her.

So yeah on one side I could say I wasnt deeply bothered [in a good or a bad way] by her, and only in passing acknowledged her to be the plot-convenient side character she was in the very beginning, but on the other hand, I somehow latently knew that it was so much more than that, and I am so so glad it was in fact the latter of the two that was true.

Impression now

Listen my impression of her now, cannot be encapsulated into a well thought out explanation of why I think so and so of her and how it affects me, but I think personally right now if you ask me what I think of Caroline, I would say I see her and I think, 

Oh I....know you, I see you everyday when I think about the kind of growth I want to have, I see myself in your past and while you may have grown I havent, but I can see it’s possible, however fictional and non-existent you are, if it’s possible for you, it’s possible for me.

[Also I just wanna add here, that in no way am I, at this moment, referring to canon!caroline directly but I am strictly thinking of the Caroline I have built in my head and the growth I projected onto her when I saw her transition from vapid blonde shallow bitchy human [and here’s the thing she wasnt vapid or shallow even in her human days but the insecurities still made her feel that way] to confident, painfully real, optimistic, loyal and so overflowingly full of love-vampire who has forgiven her past self but also loves her past self because no one thought she was worth that but Caroline Forbes thinks 16 year old Human Caroline Forbes deserves just as much love as Vampire Caroline Forbes and if no one else is brave enough, real enough to give that to her she will give it to her herself, Which to me is beautiful and resonates so deeply with me and that is exactly what I would say is my current impression of her; A girl so full of love and light, even her own shadow self cannot escape it.]

Favorite moment

Every moment she beats up a guy is my favourite moment and every time she insults Klaus with a smile on her face is also my favourite moment.

Idea for a story

Ok so I’ve had this idea brewing in my head for a while and I’m really excited to make it into an extensive multichap work when I do get the time, but you know how in Legacies [gag] there’s this episode where in an alternative universe where Hope doesnt exist at all, Caroline and Klaus are the cutest Enemies of the State couple to ever exist and they both are basically fucking shit up to the point where the humans wanna end the supernatural world as they know it, in legacies the reason behind the supernatural uprising was something unnecessarily sordid and stupid but I am basically thinking of something else but will lead to the same alternate universe we see in legacies, the basic premise rn is that  Klaus and Caroline are the Supreme leaders of the supernatural community and are leading them against the humans in this war that has broken out all over the world in a bid to end the supernatural world altogether, and I kind of have it outlined to take them from However Long it Takes my Last Love to let’s discuss our next strategy to over throw all opposing world governments on this table and then proceed to fuck on it.

So yeah I kinda wanna say stay tuned for that, but I wont cuz seriously I have no faith in myself lmao.

Unpopular opinion

As much as I love to criticize other characters [mostly Elena] for being hypocritical twats regarding Caroline’s choices, Caroline herself is a hypocrite multiple times through out canon, but I myself find that I am ok with that, since I never expected her to be perfect and her hypocrisy only makes her more real in my eyes since every time she is a hypocrite she is called out on it and made to face her own double standard.

Favorite relationship

I wanna say Klaus, like seriously I really really do,  but for me personally the relationship my Vampire!Caroline has with her past human self will always be the most beautiful enriching and hope giving thing.

That and also her relationship with her mom and how it finds this transformation from a place where they constantly hurt each other and are estranged from each other to a place where they try so hard to understand and love each other and finding the other to be an unmovable pillar in their life that strengthens and holds them up also resonates with me deeply.

Favorite headcanon

This one

[there-are-things-i-dont-forget]

SPOILERS FOR CRITICAL ROLE CAMPAIGN 2 BELOW

I just wanted to talk about how much the Mighty Nein and Matt and Critical Role have meant to me over the past few months. I started Campaign 2 in January this year, when I moved out for university and was able to live on my own for the first time. They quite literally saved me, because I cared so much for the setting and the characters and the story that Matt wove and how the players interacted with them that I hung on just to see how it would end. 

For me, it was amazing how I could relate the characters to aspects of myself, and how watching them all get their happy endings have made me be able to look forward with a bit more hope.

Let’s start with Beau. I’ll be honest, Marisha’s characters are always the most challenging for me, because of how real they are. Marisha is a stunning actor, incredibly skilled, and Beau was the character I responded to the most as if it was a real person. Everyone else I could enjoy and play into the metagame of watching the players be characters. With Beau and Marisha, it was so real. Moreover, I could see myself reflected in the character (which is probably why I found her so challenging to begin with). Trauma, hurt, being an asshole to other people before they could reject her first. Not the best at compliments, giving in to anger and sarcasm, struggling to connect. And I got to watch her grow, and be accepted, and learn from her mistakes, and be appreciated by who she was, and in the end get vindication on her abusers, and find love and acceptance. Beau’s story is incredibly special to me.

In that same vein is Yasha’s. Manipulated, taken advantage of, forced to do things against her will. Yasha’s story is the one that I can relate to the most, in terms of trauma, and to see her quite literally rip the wings off of her abuser was cathartic in a way that I did not expect, but should have foreseen. And in the end, she also got her happy ending. I’m gonna leave it at that, because any more will make me cry. But I hold her and her character arc so close to my heart.

Liam’s performances are the hardest for me to watch because he feels so much, and I love it. He really gives it all to the scene and it is incredible. Caleb was a character that I overlooked for a bit in the beginning (as Jester had quickly become my favorite), but he quickly climbed as we began to see more of his character and his backstory. Manipulated and groomed by someone he was supposed to be able to trust, forced again to do things against his will, falling in to flashbacks and panic attacks, struggling to rejoin society and interact with others, a love and a passion for learning to a nearly obsessive sense, both for the love of it and for the possibility of gaining the power and strength needed to take back control. Slowly learning to love, to grow, to find friends and see that there can be more to life, that you don’t have to be ruled by your trauma or let it define you, but also still acknowledging it and its effects. But also just how long it takes, and how it can affect you in ways you cannot imagine. He also got his vindication on his abuser, and again, I cried, tears of happiness for him and of grief and hope for me, that one day I might be able to do the same.

Caleb, Yasha, and Beau are the ones I relate to the most because their story is my story, and watching them grow and love means it can happen to me as well. I cannot stress how important and incredible it is for me to realize that. In the more material sense, they all got closure and catharsis against those who hurt them, and they all learned to love again, to open their hearts and let others in again. And that means I can too.

This brings me to the Shadowgast love story. I know this is really controversial for the fandom and I don’t care. For me, their arc was perfectly realistic, and their ending was exactly what I expected for the characters. Finding a kin spirit, learning together, hesitant but trusting in the other’s passion for study at the very least, slowly and naturally growing closer and learning more about each other, revealing more. The betrayal from Essek, the scene on the boat, the slight recoiling on either side, and then learning again, slowly trusting again and teaching each other to forgive themselves, that they were both victims in a sense and that they can take back control and do better, and choose to do better and be better. Slowly healing, and healing together, knowing the worst of each other and choosing to stay but still acknowledging those parts of each other. The scene where they return to the T-Dock and they talk about time travel, and Caleb disintegrates the whole thing? That’s growth, and that’s growing together. And they continue to grow for years, and heal for years, and eventually they end up together, but it takes time. Of course it does. And Essek’s character and this ending really helped me understand some of my own feelings in terms of friendship and romance. Everyone upset that there wasn’t any “on screen” romance or whatever, to me, fundamentally misunderstood the character, especially since his love language does not seem to be physical touch at all (if anything it’s gift giving/acts of service - teleporting the M9 around? Helping Caleb solve the spell? Giving up to dunamis gem to help the M9 get a long rest?). But yeah. Watching characters like that help validate my own experiences in friendship and romance and it was fantastic. 

The others I have a bit less in common with, but there’s still stuff to talk about. Veth having her body changed by someone else, something out of her control, feeling alien in this body and struggling to find a sense of self, then finding friends willing to pour everything into helping her be herself again? Fjord learning he is valuable whether or not he has powers/can serve others, that he has worth just as himself, and that that is enough? Those were stories I needed to hear, to know that something like that is possible.

Caduceus growing out of his comfort zone, exploring, learning, but still being a rock for the others (and for the viewers), and "Pain doesn’t make people. It’s love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential. It’s love that saves them."?  Molly’s loyalty and “leave every place better than you found it”? Even if I couldn’t relate directly to the characters didn’t mean they didn’t have an impact, and these are things that I will carry with me always.

Jester. I have just about nothing in common with Jester, and I loved it. Her optimism, her jokes, and her art (including the dicks), just the absolute light and joy that was her character was exactly what I needed to get through some of the toughest times of my life. Watching her grow from episode one to episode 141 was insane, to mature but not lose her creativity and her fun for life. She was my reminder that there is good and light and hope in the world, even if sometimes you have to create it for yourself, and that is what kept me going sometimes.

And finally, Matt. I cannot give enough thanks to you for choosing to share this amazing world and this story with us. Your storytelling is what prompted me to finally put my ideas into writing, and now I’m working on my own book. Along with Jester, Essek is one of my favorites, and his story arc and characterization was incredibly important to me. I truly have no words for how Critical Role and especially you, with the care and passion and obvious love for storytelling that you have, have changed my life. And I cannot thank you enough.

Am I sad that the campaign ended? Maybe a little. I will miss these characters. But I truly believe that Matt ended the campaign at the perfect point, and I loved the final episode, it made incredible sense for the end of the characters (maybe a teeny bit more Marion/Babenon? But I digress). I’m sure Campaign 3 will be just as astounding.

My love and thanks to the cast and crew of Critical Role. Rest well knowing you did a fantastic job, and I’ll see you in campaign 3.

PS: I know there’s a lot of tags, I want to make sure I cover all my bases so people don’t get spoiled if they have these tags blocked because I have been spoiled too many times by people who tag badly.

[doshmanziari]

Architectural Criticism in 2021/2022 || Part 1.5

Before writing a fuller continuation of my previous essay on architectural criticism, I’m inserting a mini-essay that focuses on a particular piece of criticism. Let me be clear: I don’t see Kate Wagner, the person behind @mcmansionhell, as an enemy; I’m just using one of her articles as an example because I had, in my essay, already linked two articles of hers (more accurately, one article and an image from another), and I’d rather elaborate on what I mean when I write “...a vapid buildup to a politically convenient takeaway” than bring in an entirely different item. Wagner, in my view, represents a sort of destabilizing criticism that takes pleasure in tackling “dry” subject matter with breathless, Meme-heavy sarcasm. I find the tone off-putting, but I appreciate it as one attempt to invigorate and broaden the audiences of architectural appraisal. My issue is that by now the joke has overestimated its capacity for judgmental clarity. Really anything can be made fun of if you’re determined enough, and the more of an unquestioning audience you have the easier it is to believe everything you say is true or coherent.

The image was from this 2018 Vox article: “Betsy DeVos’ summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell” (a title likely devised by the editor; given the other residences Wagner has lambasted, I would be surprised if she truly believes this is among the worst). My observations won’t make sense unless anyone who is reading this reads her article as well, so please do that if you’d like to follow along. It should take only a couple of minutes.

What I’d first draw readers’ attention to is that Wagner spends the first four paragraphs on the United States’ beyond-vast inequality of wealth. Two of these paragraphs are the article’s largest, and the article is twelve-paragraphs-long, meaning that 1/3 of it is devoted to establishing a socio-economic context -- at least, that is the pretense. Once Wagner writes “...getting paid to make fun of DeVos’s tacky seaside decor is one of few ways to both feed myself and make myself feel better”, it is clear that her personal intent is a kind of vengeful mocking, and that her intent for readers is to prime them to associatively, knee-jerkingly despise anything which could come next with flat-affect “lmao”s. It’s hardly irrelevant to mention economic realities when examining luxury items (and what else is a mansion?), but Wagner’s subsequent analysis is not really architectural or even artistic: it is rather about looking at several photographs of a building, knowing who lives there and hating that person (and also imagining that they were responsible for all design decisions), and then mocking this-and-that in whatever ways one can devise. These grievances are understandable, but understandable grievances do not automatically lead to perceptive criticism.

Please look (perhaps again) at the first image. Note that only four, maybe, of the fourteen details Wagner chooses to focus on -- “no wry comment needed”, “these look like playdoh stamps”, “when you love consistency”, and “oh my god is this a shutter” -- approach anything vaguely resembling coherent criticism; and the other four images fare even worse (with the exception of the highlighting of an apparently absurd interior balcony). The rest are inane attempts at saying anything at all. Writing “hell portal” by an upper porch area may be funny for a moment, but what does it actually express? Well, nothing, except the author’s own irritation which will find whatever it can to announce its contemptuous sarcasm. Wagner’s captions will land only to the degree that the reader is humorously sympathetic.

The aforementioned remarks, excepting the one about the embedded chubby Tuscan columns’ Play-Doh-likeness, suggest that the worst thing a building can do is be formally heterogeneous. The implicative corollary here is that good architecture is eminently justifiable in all of its parts -- consistent, unified, rational. This is as fine a personal belief as anything else, but when it is wielded as dogma against architecture which has no interest in being a Petit Trianon it can only reveal its intellectual self-limitations. Wagner writes that “there is a difference between architectural complexity and a mess”, yet what that difference may be is hand-waved away. We just have to believe that thirteen different windows styles is too much. What’s the threshold? Does it depend on the size of the building? The types of styles used? Who knows.

Now of course bad architecture exists, and sometimes the failure indeed points to deficient editorial acumen; for architecture, like any other art, is as much about what’s included as what’s excluded. But in saying so little about the shingle style itself, Wagner seems to have given no thought to readers concluding that all shingle style houses are freakish -- more specifically, concluding that this freakishness is a damning transgression, and that no self-respecting, punching-up class-warrior would ever be caught dead sincerely enjoying their geometric, “exquisite corpse” escapades. In fact, the freakish tendencies of shingle style houses are just what make them such great fun to see, visit, or reside in. Wagner’s article, as far as I can tell, omits this possibility. When she writes, “Betsy likely went with this style because it is very popular in New England and in coastal enclaves of the rich and famous in general”, one is being pushed to presume that the only probable reason the shingle style exists or could be preferred over another style is to signal élite solidarity.

The photograph right above is of Kragsyde, a Massachusetts shingle style mansion, designed by the US-Northeast-oriented firm of Peabody & Stearns, completed in the 1880s. It was demolished almost a century ago, but the few exterior images of it which remain are, I think, fascinating -- maybe most of all for its enormous archway, possibly a porte-cochère, which has a thin, overextending keystone bizarrely driven into the top like a nail puncturing a petrified rainbow. I bring the building up because Wagner gives us no reason to consider why Kragsyde may have been a genuine architectonic accomplishment and not merely an oversized farce of contiguous pretensions. To the layperson hot off of the Vox piece, there may be no artistic difference between it and DeVos’ place, except that perhaps Kragsyde has a more consistent fenestrative application (would that make it better? if so, why?).

I appreciate that only so much can be said when you’re limited to less than a thousand words, especially when the issue is “complicated” (as the byline for Vox’s First-person series advertises). But the problem I keep coming back to is how DeVos’ mansion is treated as a stand-in for DeVos herself. This makes any architectural critique, no matter how pressed it is for size, flimsily presentist: its durability starts and ends with how alive the architecture’s resident(s) and political presence are. On some emotional level, this is pretty sensible: if we despise monarchical institution, we can find a sort of loophole to enjoying Versailles palace on the basis of it no longer being the residence of royalty. Our awe over its decadence and scope is intersectionally “admissible” on the basis of its having become a UNESCO World Heritage site. Similarly, one can imagine DeVos’ mansion being appreciated in a hundred years (should it still exist then) because the passage of time will have rendered DeVos’ person a historical fact, and perhaps more separable, and then tolerable, in that regard -- even if the building remains private.

But if architecture is, as a craft, critically whittled down to nothing more or less than inorganic expressions of social disparities, with every aesthetic decision a reflection of politically explicable taste, then we must assume that a great deal of the world’s most remarkable architecture is equally ridiculous and despicable, since so much of it was born out of great privilege and required specialized resources. I doubt Wagner actually believes this, because it would betray the entire premise of her McMansion Hell project, which is to demonstrate how so many modern day mansions are deeply unpleasant mounds of visual illiteracy, and cannot hold even a stump of a candle to the luminously learned and eclectic talents of prior great architects such as Mackintosh, Norman Shaw, Lutyens, or Ledoux. So what’s the takeaway here? As far as I can tell, it’s simply that if you hate Betsy DeVos, and if you care about class, you should hate her house too. And I do not think that that is architectural criticism.

[sweetsassymusic]

The Long Kaz Rant I Told Myself I Wouldn’t Write, But Here We Are

This is probably an unpopular opinion. And I hope it doesn't come across as confrontational or anything because I don't mean it that way. But I've always been super confused by the way Kaz is accepted, basically across the entire fandom, as either morally gray or straight up villainous? He doesn’t really seem like either of those things to me. On a surface level, obviously there are things he’s done that are normally considered evil. He’s stolen, he’s killed, he threatened a child, he gouged out someone’s eye. And that’s all pretty bad, right? But it completely ignores the context given in the books. (More after the cut because this got too long...)

There’s a difference between doing something evil and doing something that’s shocking, “dark,” or difficult to watch.

Before I read the books, I heard fans discuss all the horrible things Kaz does. And the way people talk about him, I was expecting him to be… Feral Kaz – someone who delights in doing horrible things because he’s just so twisted and angry. The author herself even referred to him on her blog as being utterly despicable. Wow! This guy must really go out of his way to hurt innocent people, huh? So when I sat down to actually read it, I was so surprised. Most (if not all?) the killings were done on some level of self-defense. His “murder victims” were actual evil people trying to kill him or someone he loved. And the reason he threatened a child was because the only alternative was killing her – something he would never want to do. You know, because he’s not evil.

I don’t know if I just have very different definitions of these terms than most people? But to me, the idea of Kaz being “utterly despicable” should not even be on the table to begin with (Leigh Bardugo, you good?) and even the idea of him being “morally gray” is questionable.

When I think of a morally good character, I don’t think of someone who never does anything questionable or always perfectly makes the correct choices. I think of someone who is on a mission–either to protect the world, a loved one, or simply pursuing a personal goal–who at least tries to conduct his mission in a way that either does no harm to others, or (when that’s not possible) does as little harm as necessary to get the job done. 

Whereas, when I think of a villainous character, I think of someone who has no regard for others at all. Someone who either relishes in harming the innocent, or pays zero consideration to whether he harms innocents while pursuing his goals (which are usually, in themselves, harmful to innocent people). 

And finally, when I think of a morally gray character, I think of someone directly between these two. Someone who is a little bit evil, a little bit sadistic, but not entirely evil. He’s got a few good points too. Maybe he’s someone who keeps switching sides, unsure if he wants to be a hero or villain. Maybe he has hurt a lot of innocent people unnecessarily, but he joins in with the good guys for personal gain, and people don’t mind him there simply because he doesn’t interfere with the protagonist’s goals. Or maybe he’s the “Bad Cop” to someone else’s Good Cop: someone who uses more violence than is necessary, just for fun, but still helps the good side in some capacity, so everyone chooses to look past it.

Under these definitions, Kaz (to me) seems more like a good character. While pursuing his personal goals, he protects people he loves, and yes, he does do “dark” things. But he doesn’t relish in doing them (despite his reputation in-universe of being a chaotic sadist. His reputation is not accurate; he invented it for his own protection). He does them because he has to. If he can get the job done right without hurting anyone, that’s the route he’ll take. But that option isn’t always available. And he’s not the type to lie down and die just to avoid getting his hands dirty (nor should he, imo). 

Again, maybe I just have a different idea of what constitutes being morally gray. But I always thought it was meant to be a judgment on the choices you make when you actually HAVE a choice? A morally gray character has the choice to be good or evil, and they choose to do both (which one depending on how they feel that day). 

Whereas, if you do something “bad” because circumstances force you to do it–because you or someone you love will die otherwise–that’s pretty much the same as having a gun to your head. You’re not morally gray. You’re doing it under duress. It’s survival, not a reflection of where you stand on moral topics. Like, if you trap a vegan in a room with only a piece of meat, and you leave them there for days, weeks, that person doesn’t suddenly become a “fake vegan” if they eat that meat to avoid literally starving to death. You forced them to do it. When it comes to their moral beliefs, they would still be a vegan if they had the freedom to make that choice. You just put them in a situation where those choices aren’t available to them. Your lack of freedom in a situation shouldn’t define you.

The same can be said for placing a starving, homeless orphan boy alone in the dog-eat-dog world of Ketterdam. The option of being a sweet little law-abiding citizen is not available to him. So is it really fair to define him by something in which he had no choice?

I’ve come across so many GrishaVerse fans who, while sipping on their Starbucks in the comfort of their own home, go “Ugh, Kaz. He’s so DARK, so EVIL!” (Fun fact: while my mom was watching the show, she said Kaz is evil because “he seems to always have a plan.” Oh no! Not PLANS!)  “He must be some kind of monster to be able to do the things he does and still live with himself! I could NEVER do those things!” Well…you’ve never actually had to do those things? Your life has never depended on it? Idk, to me, it’s just a very privileged take. And I’m not trying to make this into a big social issue. It’s not like criticism against a fictional character is anywhere near the same level of importance as the issues marginalized people are facing in real life. I’m just saying, it’s very easy to condemn activity you’ve never been forced to engage in for your own survival.

One of the biggest reasons people have given me for why they think Kaz is evil is that he is “for himself.” Even the author said she thinks Kaz is worse than the Darkling (who, I’ve gotten the impression, she believes to be irredeemable) because the Darkling has communal goals (he wants to bring positive change for other people/the world at large) while Kaz’s goals are just personal (he wants to bring positive change for himself and only himself). And for one? It just isn’t true: many (if not most) of the things Kaz does is either for his Crows or for his late brother; he just disguises it with supposed self-interest for the sake of his reputation. And second? It’s…not actually wrong to have personal goals or to act in self-interest. Bettering your own life is a valid desire. It’s not the same as being selfish. Not everything you do has to be for other people.

(And, tbh, this is something Leigh Bardugo seems to have a problem with in general, not just in this scenario. I could write a whole separate rant about other characters that were demonized in-narrative for engaging in “too much” self-care, and how her unforgivingly black and white morality ruined the Shadow and Bone trilogy for me. Worst of all, she even seemed to imply recently that the only reason real-life antisemitism is wrong is because “the Jews didn’t fight back”? [Like, if they had met her criteria of “fighting back”, would that make antisemitism somewhat justified to her? What? Idek, but she should really clarify.] Basically, she seems to take “non-selfishness” to an extreme. I don’t know her personally, I don’t want to make assumptions, I don’t have anything personal against her, and I’m not trying to get her cancelled or anything, I promise. But please, when you read her books, please don’t accept all her ideas at face value, because there’s some Weird Shit™ in there sometimes.)

Anyway, another reason people say Kaz is bad or morally gray is that he wants revenge. “Revenge is a bad coping mechanism! You should want JUSTICE! Not REVENGE!” And again, this argument is wild to me. I mean, yes, there are situations–especially in real life, modern, western contexts–where revenge is a bad coping mechanism someone has developed, and transforming their anger into a desire for justice is a way for them to overcome that and express their anger in a healthier way. But that’s a very specific scenario. When we’re talking generally, the line between revenge and justice is a lot thinner than people think (and in some scenarios, there is no line at all). 

For example, real life victims and their families often say they can’t wait to see the perpetrator rot in prison, even wishing (sometimes even fantasizing) that the guy gets abused in prison by fellow inmates. For them, justice and revenge are wrapped up together in one big court-issued sentence. And while some people find that disturbing or take issue with it, it’s…generally considered valid outrage? This guy is evil and hurt them, so it’s okay for these people to want him to suffer. And most importantly, these people called the cops instead of taking matters into their own hands, therefore they’re Good, right? They’re good citizens who obey and rely on the established authority, therefore they are handling their anger in an Acceptable™ way?

But in the world of Ketterdam, if someone has victimized you, or is trying to kill you or someone you love, you can’t just call the fucking cops (and let’s be honest, looking at irl cops, it’s a questionable idea here too sometimes). If we’re analyzing Kaz’s outrage and how he handles it, we have to analyze it in the context of where he lives, not where we live. We have options in our lives that Kaz doesn’t have. So we have to ask, what are the most productive steps he could realistically take in his world?

I see activists and bloggers on websites like this, publicly fantasizing about gouging the eyes out of certain politicians and right-wing figureheads. And they would probably do it for real if they could. On Tumblr and Twitter, this is generally considered righteous anger. The politicians are evil, so it’s okay to hurt them, right? That’s how the logic goes, anyway (I know some will disagree, but it’s a common take here). Well, imagine if, instead of just being a bigot, one of these evil people personally stabbed–possibly killed–your girlfriend. And there were no cops to call, no news stations or social media to turn to, to show people what this guy did. No authority or community on your side. No way to ensure this guy faced consequences for his actions. There’s just you, your dying girlfriend, your helplessness, your anger. What would be the appropriate way to handle this situation, so you were acting out of justice instead of revenge? What does “justice” even mean in a world like that? It’s a world where either you hurt others or you lie down and just let others keep hurting those you love (which, in itself, would be evil). I can’t think of any “appropriate” response Kaz could take. Which, for better or worse, is probably why he just went for the eye. You probably would too in that context. Are you morally gray? I doubt it.

It’s really weird to me how people seem to hold Kaz to this high standard of absolute Moral Purity, but they don’t hold other characters to it. Like, was the dad on Taken being “feral” or “morally gray” when he told his daughter’s kidnapper that “I will find you and I will kill you” and then pursued him with fury? His motivations were personal and not communal. He was coming from a place of revenge, just as much as justice. But most people consider him a hero. He’s not controversial or “dark.” There are plenty of other heroes who do terrible things (sometimes to innocent people! Even when it’s not even necessary!) for the “greater good” or just because it’s convenient. People call them a “badass” and then turn around and say Kaz is just “bad.” Idk, it just seems really arbitrary the way people draw these lines.

If we’re expanding the definition of “morally gray” to include anyone who’s ever done anything questionable, made a mistake, been forced to do something they wouldn’t normally do, done something for personal reasons instead of for the world at large, or wanted revenge for something, then there literally are no heroes in fiction (except maybe a few cardboard cutouts) or in real life.

(Ironically, the most morally gray thing Kaz does, imo, is something most people don’t even have a problem with: the fact he runs a gambling house to “take money from pigeons.” And even that is really mild [no one is forcing the “pigeons” to gamble their money away]. But yeah, that’s one of the few instances I could think of where he actually hurt innocent people unnecessarily. That and the time, as a kid, where he stole candy from that other kid...and even that might be mostly-but-not-entirely excused by the fact he was starving to death. But yeah.)

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

Lauren’s Attunement/// The Catharsis of the Dark Diary (Long ass post)

Ah ... I really don't know how much I could say about this Attunement that I decided to separate into two parts and notice that I am going to deviate a bit from my original intention to make some clear points because there is a lot to get out of what Lauren has said. With that in mind I hope it is not too confusing to read.

First part: Cancellation Culture

I think our moonchild has been perfectly clear on this point. "We are living in a very sick world" "In a world in great need of healing and that will not do so through the culture of cancellation." Cancellation culture sucks, folks. A twisted idea of ​​exposing things from the past of people who have not been good and that people have become accustomed to criticizing as if all those who criticize were a mirror of virtue and perfection when nobody is perfect and Lauren also mentions that in your Attunement. Lauren also mentions that we cannot hold people accountable for their mistakes because it is the most important part of the process. And it is a truth like a cathedral. People who make mistakes need to take responsibility for their actions so that they don't make them again. It is necessary to learn from it and improve as people and heal. In the part where Lauren mentions that she would never publicly embarrass the people she loves, she reminded me of Camila. I did not want to mention Camila in this because we know that Lauren has also been humiliated but if we talk about the cancellation culture that part goes to Camila. Camila has been a victim of the culture of cancellation long before leaving the band and they have made Twitter threads, blaming her with a racist past for which she has apologized many times but still drag her to hell, no matter what. Camila has haters who love to fuck her and Lauren knows it too. She has known it forever and a clear example is (I'm not going to put a screenshot because it would distract me) the tweet where someone calls Camila ugly and Lauren responds to that hater saying: "Hello, can you show me a picture of you? " It is these details that make us understand that everything she sees on the internet in relation to her and her loved ones affects her a lot and what she says when she talks about the online world where we are all the time, is bullshit. She says that it's not that you can't do what makes you beautiful, that she's fine with it, but also the people who are watching don't know that shit is fake and that people aren't happy with who they are. "That when they look in the mirror they don't love themselves." And I think she hit the spot there too, folks. She has perfectly outlined a hater's profile. The lack of love of those people who have found an escape route to their frustrations, to what is wrong with their lives, that makes them what they are. Because as she says, we live in a screwed up world, it's true but the point is, how the hell have we got to this point? How do we get to this point where the human being has lost humanity and has become shadows of hatred and rejection that lives by making Twitter threads and canceling people to feel better about themselves? And then Lauren talks about Trump. She mentions Trump as a symptom of lack of love. And again she is not wrong. Donald Trump's life was never very happy. With an authoritarian father who always preferred his eldest son to follow the legacy of his family and perpetuate the name of it, when this son did not want that pressure, the father banished the eldest son and all the shit fell on Trump. The only other male in the family. Trump is that man's mirror. From that egomaniac, controlling, arrogant, undoubtedly macho and racist father because he has really shown it. Trump lives on appearances. To demonstrate something that is not and to hide its shortcomings in a marked narcissism.

Another thing that strikes me about what she has said and another truth is also that we no longer love each other because we do not know where we are standing. And that is also true, we do not know who we are because others dictate who we are. They dictate what to say, what to eat, what music to listen to, what television series to watch until we become cattle. We have lost our ability as individual beings to fit the mold of livestock just to give us the feeling of feeling connected, as if we were part of something. Part of a whole that is still controlled. From this part Lauren begins to talk about what she has written in her diary so I will continue with the second part, but to close this one, I can only say that many of the things she mentions are a reflection of what we are doing living, of what we are suffering and our own fragility as a human species.

Second part: Black Diary and Amy's Shadow

I think we have a concept of great artists as broken human beings, wrapped in dramas and additions that actually "help" perfectly in their art. Where, the more chaos there is in their lives, the more geniuses they become. And I think Amy can be an example of that. And talking about her, because I'm going to start by talking about her and then I'm going to express my thoughts about Lauren. I remember responding to an ask yesterday saying that I was terrified when Lauren said she felt identified with her because their lives were a kind of parallel. And then I thought better of it and realized that yes, both lives have that parallel but with a difference, Lauren has what Amy never had. An emotional support network. Good friends. Amy's life was marked by rejection, mockery, the circus that was her life where her art was in the background and her voice was shattered to make way for the addicted, alcoholic Amy, where her greatest achievement was to climb to a drugged and drunk stage, with glasses of wine that she drank live and her show was to demonstrate her weakness so that others made fun of her. Her parents perpetuated that shit because it gave them money, and as long as she made money, at the cost of her own physical and mental health, nothing else mattered. Being an artist is not only knowing how to sing, dance, write, paint and be good at all kinds of artistic expression, but it is much more than that. Being an artist is breaking yourself into pieces and giving them to your fans to do with those pieces what they want. It is giving more than what nobody will give you in return. And Amy got broken. They broke her into thousands of pieces and they all jumped like vultures wanting a piece of her until she ceased to exist because they never gave her a chance to rebuild herself. They never gave her a chance to learn to love herself to be able to heal because they didn't want a healthy Amy because that didn't sell. They were only served by her pain because she filled their bank accounts, those of her friends, those of her managers, those of the entertainment tabloids. Those of her boyfriends. The ones from her own fucking parents. And so far we can draw parallels with Lauren. It is possible that our moonchild has had or is having her problems with her mother, or with her record label, or with whatever she is having problems and is dealing with right now, but at least she does not have a family that just supports her and is there for the money she may or may not earn. And yes, she mentioned many fears at first before reading the newspaper, but at least she has had a chance to regroup when she needs to. Lauren has the ability to heal herself, her own will thanks to her own strength. Because even if you are afraid of breaking or feeling pain, you have to feel it. You have to hit rock bottom to learn how to get out of there. You have to go to the extreme of falling enough to know that your own will, your own inner strength is so great that it helps you to rise not only once, but a thousand times if necessary. And she has that ability. I believe and have always said it, you already know it. That the real problem, or part of it, is not Lauren's fragility because that is bullshit. Lauren is a strong girl but at the same time she has this angel, this kind of kindness that really does not go well in an environment as rotten and toxic as the industry. Lauren Jauregui does not fit molds. She cannot follow rules if she considers that they are not fair and that people in the industry do not like because they lose their ability to manipulate it. There is a reason that her song Toy has disappeared, folks. Lauren is still an artist and of course she too falls into the concept of what it means to be an artist, breaking herself into pieces and giving those pieces to us who are her fans. And since we have a piece of it, perhaps we create ourselves with the right to demand more from her because we are not satisfied with what she gives us and we criticize her for it. The worst fans are capable of fucking her and haters are able to write Twitter threads exposing what they hate about her.

That would scare anyone, folks. Even if you are not an artist. There is a Lauren Gif that I posted on the blog as part of a set of images related to Camren. In that gif Lauren looks at the audience with such a raw expression on her face saying something like: "You who are there screaming like crazy, with your perfect lives while I am being pressured to the point of breaking and you just want more" (I put the only screenshot because I don't have the GiF image at hand)

This GiF is something that always caught my attention and since I have known Lauren she knew that there was something else with her. I met her as the bad girl, the bitch one. That image that appeared to conform to Tyren. And then her smile disappeared. I remember when I joined the fandom where one of my first posts about PR circuses was to ask myself: Why do girls look so fucked up? Why is Lauren so sad or why has her smile disappeared? And then there were those weird videos where she seemed like "haunted", like outside of herself and that agreed with the time that she had to stunt for Tyren and always seemed to be the same dynamic with her. And then it was not only me who realized that Lauren was not well, but also other mutuals and we kept repeating the same thing to the bastards on her team: "Lauren is not well, please take care of her " That was something that we repeated a thousand times with Lauren and then also with Camila because it always caught my attention that the two of them were equally fucked at the same time. Before I knew that Lauren had her problems with her family, I also noticed that separation. I think I received a bit of shit after expressing my thoughts but in the end, I was never wrong because Lauren herself has expressed it and I think if I had been in the fandom long before 2018 I would have noticed it too. This has been a very emotional Attunement on Lauren's part and I told her in a tweet, as her fan has been a privilege to have witnessed that. It is a privilege to be a fan of a girl with a huge heart who has flaws that make her more human than other people and who has grown enough to know that she can continue to do so. With this post I have tried to be respectful and say that, although I do not know her, we connect in a special way because we have almost the same way of thinking in many aspects (although I do not agree in many others) and I think that still does most important to me. About the newspaper. It reminded me of the lost diary topic, but apparently she has more than one. Who knows. I remember my period of having diaries in my teens and I appreciate that because it made me realize that writing would be an important part of my life. If there is one way I am good at expressing myself it is writing, and no, not in English so I apologize for the mistakes. There is one last detail of Lauren's Attunement that goes a bit more on the personal side. When she says: "To be a real one, is to be an emotional one". I have always had a conflict with being emotional. Starting with my zodiac sign (yes, I know it's a bit silly to believe in that but it amuses me). As a Pisces, I am an emotional being. As a physically disabled person I have my limitations and although these limitations do not define me, I have always had a fierce fight with my vulnerable side. I hate depending on others, physically and emotionally. I also hate getting sick and others having to take care of me when I'm unable to do it on my own, that's why I don't get along with my emotional side. Excessively emotional and I prefer to be more cerebral in many aspects (I think you have noticed that my favorite word this year has been brainless people, right) and dependency is something that I can't stand on myself. That they depend on me does not matter, I am always for those who need me but being dependent is something I tend to avoid like pests. Relying on others to do things for you, depending on the affection of other people ... my family (except my mother) was never very affectionate to say, it was not impulsively hugging you or public displays of affection and I learned to be the same . But I also learned to give what others did not give me. And it cost me. That of leaving the mold of a family that is there and that sometimes worries but that others can leave you and not know what you are doing on any given day. A family that demands expectations. At least some of my uncles. I think that in that part I feel identified with Lauren and it is curious because I am adopted but she is not. And still I feel identified with Lauren and at the same time with Camila and the relationship that she has with her mother, which is almost an exact copy of the relationship that I had with my mother throughout my childhood and adolescence. I guess that's why I follow them both, apart from because I love the music of both. The last detail and I already stop talking about me because this post is about Lauren. What she talks about the industry, the molds, how female artists within the industry are treated. That was also an important aspect because here we are, always complaining about the fact that female artists are undervalued and punished twice as much as a male artist because the music industry is misogynous and macho. That's true.

Society tends to forgive the mistakes of male artists who sometimes do more reprehensible things than female artists and all the mistakes of those female artists (Leigh-Ann of LM throwing shade at Camila) come to light more times and they are more hated. That is a part of the industry that I have always hated and that makes me sad at the same time because it always affects our girls. And I don't know what else I have left to say that I haven't already said, I hope I wasn't too confused with my ideas but it was something I had to write about and I've taken my time to do that. I don't know if Lauren is ever going to read this, but I wanted to thank her. Thanks moonchild. Thank you for giving us that piece of you that makes you vulnerable so that we know it. Thank you for being yourself, for teaching us that we can heal and continue to grow. Thank you for that beautiful mind of yours that has so much to express and deliver to this screwed up world. Don't stop being real, mija. Don't let that light you have go out. I love you so much moonchild ...

sorry for the long reading, folks but it was something I needed to said.

[itsclydebitches]

Welcome back, everyone! Starting here in Chapter Six these recaps are doing double duty with my latest attempt at completing National Novel Writing Month. Granted, this isn’t a novel and yes, I technically started this project well before November, but there’s no way I’d manage 50,000 words of fiction in 2020, so I’m hoping to hit that with these recaps instead. You all get semi-frequent updates and I may get to finally say I completed this challenge! That’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned.

Quick reminder: new teams, CFVY was separated, everything is awful. There, done. Seventy-five pages in we’ve come back to Velvet’s point of view as she and the other students are carted off in airbuses. She’s experiencing the “same shock and dismay” that she saw on Yatsuhashi’s face before they were separated, thus I’d like to re-emphasize last chapter’s argument that though shaking up the teams isn’t inherently a bad idea, doing it in this way while your students are recovering from/still involved in a war is… not so great for their mental health. Yeah, yeah, Remnant is a hard place and these kids experience traumatic events on the weekly, but still. There’s a fine line between preparing students for that kind of life and simply traumatizing them further, because this is a kind of trauma when the teams so heavily rely on one another - fill every aspect of one another’s lives: friend, colleague, family, teacher, student, leader, follower, romantic partner - and you’re now uprooting them with no warning. Whether or not new teams actually happen, the students think they are and that’s messing with their heads. Basically they’re just:

This problem is highlighted when we get confirmation of what I stated last time: the teams aren’t merely colleagues turned friends, but family. These fighters have got all their emotional eggs in one basket. Velvet goes so far as to imply that she loves her team more than her parents, with the logic being that they (her parents) “never talked to each other anymore.” So… if Coco and Yatsuhashi stopped talking would that undermine your love for each of them as individuals? I get what the overall takeaway is - divorce is a nasty business and can leave lasting scars on kids caught in the middle, to say nothing of the fact that, as a young adult, Velvet is poised to start creating a family by choice, not blood - but it’s still an odd way to phrase the issue. Here we have another instance of me picking up on implications due to RWBY, the franchise’s, overall themes. When you’ve got a story so thoroughly touting a teens vs. adults mentality, having Velvet mentally reject her parents for her team reads differently than it otherwise would. Chock that onto the pile that already includes things like, ‘Ruby denies that Qrow ever helped her’ and ‘Yang is no longer a part of grieving for Summer’ and ‘Weiss seems to have forgotten all that Klein did for her.’ There’s a lot of uncomfortable details attached to our heroes and how they see the adults in their lives, parents included.

Velvet doesn’t get to worry for long though. A much happier voice sounds across the airbus and she spots Sun, classically hanging from his tail. Instead of hearing more about her fears we segue into - you guessed it - Sun bashing. The first thought to pop into her head is that Sun “wasn’t with the rest of his team, but knowing Sun, that might have been his decision.”

...Velvet, you just tried desperately to stay with your own team and were (somehow) swept away by the apparently overwhelming crowed (still ridiculous imo). But if you didn’t manage this, what makes you think Sun had a chance? Why is his separation suddenly a potential choice when yours was presented as nothing of the sort? That is some real insistence on thinking the worst of him. I dragged Sun for abandoning his team in Volume 4 because that was abandonment. It was a choice worthy of criticism. This? This was outside of his control and Velvet knows it.

Sun saw her, smiled, and waved. Velvet looked away.

Nice, Velvet.

He comes over anyway and (kindly!) asks if she’s okay. Velvet says no, specifically because “Yatsu and I were separated.” Here we have another example of how close the partners get even within each team. Blake and Yang are inseparable. Ruby talks to Weiss more than her sister (and the concept of her talking to Blake in any meaningfully way is hilarious at this point). Now, despite being separated from her entire team - everyone is in the same awful boat - Velvet frames the situation as just being separated from Yatsuhashi. Later she repeats, “Well, I still want to try to find Yatsu.” So would it be a disappointment to find Fox or Coco instead? It’s especially weird because in the main show we see Velvet and Coco interacting the most. I actually had to look up who Velvet’s partner was because I just assumed our two girls were a duo. Apparently not. I’m not really into the CFVY side of the fandom, but I imagine there’s a substantial ship community for these two based solely on how Velvet embraces RWBY partnerships in this book, outside of the always popular Velvet/Coco, of course.

That’s admittedly a ship I can get behind. 

After Velvet unloads all her worries “Sun stared ahead, like he couldn’t quite manage to feel bad.” Attention, readers, this is an important lesson coming up! In fandom spaces I often see people analyzing novels (and other print media/visual media with narration) without taking into consideration the perspective. Unless we’ve got an omniscient perspective we need to take into account that our narrator might, simply put, be wrong (and even then, omniscient unreliable narrators are a popular choice). Often I see readers taking a characters’ thoughts - and words - at face value, which is understandable given that we’re meant to emotionally connect with them, but we have to keep in mind that this is their interpretation of events. We see the story through their eyes, how they perceive the world, but their perception of the world may not be accurate or, at the very least, is open to further interpretation. Sometimes this is used in an obvious, plot-driven manner - there’s a surprise twist for the reader, made possible because our protagonist was likewise kept in the dark - but it applies to our reading of more casual interactions too. This is a good example. Just because Velvet says Sun looks “like he couldn’t quite manage to feel bad” doesn’t mean that’s actually how Sun feels. As we’ve just re-established, Velvet is inclined to think the worst of Sun, or at least consider the worst as a distinct possibility. So if we’re asking the question, “Is Velvet’s perspective accurate to reality here?” weighing her previous assumptions against actions like Sun smiling, waving, and asking how she’s doing, AKA caring about her situation… I’d say no, it’s likely not.

At least she doesn’t outright accuse him of anything. Given that he’s not privy to these insulting thoughts, Sun chatters on about the test. He thinks it “isn’t a bad idea” because, as established, a lot of students lost teammates and are having trouble settling into Shade while still trying to live the life they had at Beacon. Changing the teams could be a “chance to really commit to our new school and our training, and learn from one another in a new way.” That’s what I think!

“Right… Or maybe some of us burned bridges with our team and might be looking for an easy way to avoid fixing those relationships.”

Velvet what the actual fuck. Can our cast NOT be assholes for five minutes??

Sun goes red at the accusation and calls her out on being harsh. “Tough love” Velvet calls it. Okay, no. Tough love is reserved for people you’re actually friends with and is meant to have them face a harsh reality they might be avoiding. Sun is avoiding an overt apology with his team, but we (and Velvet) have been given no indication that his thoughts on the test are a smokescreen to hide ulterior motives, which is what she’s talking about here. Sun clearly wants to make up with his team, he’s just struggling to accept what needs to be done to do that. Tough love would have been Velvet encouraging Sun to use this separation to reflect on what his team means to him and then, regardless of whether they end up back together, apologizing for how he unintentionally hurt them. Not… this. Plus, again, Velvet hasn’t exactly been friendly lately. She has little ground for dishing out “tough love.” You need established “love” before the “tough” part.  

In addition, she’s not listening to what Sun’s saying. “If they want us prepared for an attack, breaking up teams sounds counterproductive.” When did Sun mention anything about an attack? That’s your assumption of what’s going down based on the illegal investigation you’ve been assisting with. Sun just said that changing the teams would provide some of them with a much needed clean slate, which is true. Just because that’s not what Velvet needs doesn’t mean it’s not useful for others. As she eventually acknowledges, they can get too comfortable in the roles they’ve been playing.

We get her line about wanting to find Yatsuhashi followed by, “Sun, you do whatever you want. That’s what you’re good at.” Velvet seriously? Then minutes later she’s hoping Sun sticks close to her if he can. Real talk: everyone deserves better than this. ‘Friends’ who constantly act like your presence is a burden, insult you whenever they get the chance, insist such insults are for your benefit (it’s just tough love), but then turn around and play nice when you have something they want... those aren’t friends. Note that Velvet is - both privately and overtly - mean to Sun while he’s just existing in the airbus, going through the same horrible test as her, trying to be nice, and holding an otherwise civil conversation. While trapped on the bus with nowhere to go, Sun is a nuisance despite his best efforts. When the floor suddenly opens up and Velvet is terrified of falling and surviving on her own though, then his presence is desirable. That’s not friendship and in another story I’d praise the author(s) for writing a compelling move from shaky acquaintances to a strong bond… but I’m honestly not sure that the relationship (any of them, really) will improve. Far as I can gather, Myers thinks this is friendship.

So Velvet accuses Sun of always and forever hurting others in his pursuit of doing what pleases him (after checking in on Velvet… literally minutes ago…) which is right around when Scarlet decides to make himself known. He agrees with Sun’s belief that this test will be harder than they assume: “I think you’re right… For a change.” Everything comes with a caveat. Apparently Scarlet has been listening in the whole time, but somehow manages to turn that into an insult as well with “I’ve been standing five feet away. Maybe I’m ready for a new team, too.” Wait, is the implication that Scarlet is further annoyed because Sun didn’t notice him? Do you all have ANY idea how many times a friend has stood right next to me and I didn’t notice them because I was caught up in something like work, a show… a conversation? I’m oblivious af. I get that Sun has things to make up for but at the very least these characters could keep their criticisms to what he’s actually done wrong, not crazy reaches like, ‘Sun probably abandoned his team when everyone was separated’ or ‘Sun was busy talking to Velvet and didn’t notice me eavesdropping, so I guess I don’t mean much to him, huh.’ I’m constantly torn between the presumed realism of this writing - people are unfair in their criticisms, teens do hold unsubstantiated grudges - and acknowledging that Myers seems to have felt confident writing (1) personality and just gave it to everyone. Velvet privately becomes as critical as Coco, who is as vocal as Fox, who agrees with Yatsuhashi, who echoes Sun’s team, and Sun himself often throws that attitude right back. Round and round we go. 

As one might imagine, the three begin theorizing about what the test itself will be like. Usually Shade sets up initiation just like this. Students are transported in windowless airbuses, dumped in the desert, and told to find their way home. I’m interested in the bit about how teams are made up not only based on arrival, but also “the manner in which [the students] survived.” It definitely lends support to the assumption I’ve always had that the teams can really be random. At least not entirely. There’s strategy on the part of the instructors, thinking through aspects like, ‘Well, these two students used their wits in this manner so they’d pair together nicely.’ Or the reverse, ‘Put together the strategist with the student in love with blunt force, let them balance each other out.’ I certainly don’t think that Ozpin formed teams based solely on who ran into each other first. Not only do we have agency on the part of the students (Weiss leaves Ruby, then Jaune, then goes back to Ruby), as well as the fact that two sets of partners had to be paired together someway, but Ozpin was also carefully watching their whole performance. If the only thing that mattered was getting back to Beacon with a chess piece, why bother examining their choices? Shade appears to employ a similar setup of careful decisions portrayed as randomness, which would make sense given that Ozpin set up these schools. Though all the headmasters may not realize it (is Theodore a part of the inner circle?), or perhaps don’t agree with his methods overall, Ozpin’s influence is undeniably evident in each institution we’ve seen. 

The only difference between normal initiation and this test seems to be that the students have to find a gold figurine this time around. Though as our trio points out, there’s likely to be other differences as well, otherwise the original Shade students would have a pretty significant advantage. 

During all this Velvet remanences about Beacon’s initiation and we learn that Ozpin does, apparently, use the whole ‘Throw you into the woods where you’ll find some relic’ setup each year, as Velvet remembers being “thrown into the air” during hers. She also hits on another concern that hadn’t crossed my mind until now: what if a team includes a new student alongside the “more vocal in harassing recruits from Beacon and Haven?” It might do the Shade students some good to get to know the newcomers, but it’s not the newcomers’ responsibility to teach them some basic respect and kindness. 

During all this Rumpole, via a screen, has been explaining how the test will go down. Her little info session concludes with her telling them to “Prepare for drop-off… See you back home soon.” I really like that she used the term “home” here. It says something about how she views the school and her students’ place in it, despite the tough attitude and tougher culture of Vacuo.

Turns out, when Rumpole said drop-off she meant that literally. The floor opens up and we get a mix of some students panicking while others just happily jump out. 

Yeet. 

Like I said, Ozpin’s influence. 

I didn’t understand the panic initially - aren’t landing strategies a basic part of huntsmen training, something everyone (except Jaune) is expected to know coming into a school? Isn’t it at least partway through the year when everyone, even firsties, has had practice at this? - until I remembered Rumpole’s comment about how she hoped everyone remembered to bring their weapons this morning.

…that’s one hell of a lesson. Let’s break this down for a second. Yes, everyone at Shade is expected to carry their weapons at all times, but the meeting that started all this was early in the morning and, far as I can tell, entirely unexpected. ‘Supposed to’ is not the same thing as ‘will,’ especially when one is dealing with college-equivalent students who are still figuring expectations out. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone did leave their weapon behind. So now what? These buses are thousands of feet in the air, dropping students randomly as they jump/fall. If a student did need help how in the world would a professor assist them? Do they just expect other students to help like Pyrrha did for Jaune? It’s possible given that in a moment Octavia will help Velvet despite seeming to dislike her... but that’s not something I’d want to bank on. Whether a student forgot their weapon or has a weapon unsuited to a landing strategy, they’re going to die from this fall. Yeah, yeah, the test is supposed to be deadly, but what’s there to learn then? You’re dead! The lesson ‘Don’t forget your weapon’ or ‘Find a weapon more suited to landing strategies’ will never stick unless there are contingency plans in place to ensure that students survive their first mistakes. 

It just all seems kind of flimsy, like everything works out because the plot says it must, not because I believe this in-world setup is geared towards keeping students alive and teaching them how to survive this world. (The reverse of the story conveniently not killing civilians off during a major grimm attack.) If landing strategies are so crucial to a huntsmen’s work - and we see them a lot - why are students allowed to have weapons like Yatsuhashi’s Fulcrum that, far as I can see, provide you with no way of slowing your descent? What if you don’t have a suitable semblance? Or it hasn’t been unlocked yet? What if your weapon would work, theoretically, but you haven’t taken any pictures of other suitable weapons lately (Velvet)? What if you never figure out that there are parachutes on the ship? Unless the instructors have a secret way of saving someone from getting splattered, this seems like a test rife with deadly mistakes, not just encounters. Why not teach your students to carry mini high-tech parachutes on their belts, with weapons and semblances as backups? Incorporate Atlas tech into standard schooling, then give us huntsmen who suddenly have it taken away with the embargo, resulting in a lot of problems. I mean, the students are legit scared in this scene, Velvet included. Having them face deadly grimm is one thing, but why test the odds with a thousand foot plunge when there’s absolutely no reason to? Far as I can see, the schooling isn’t built around ensuring they survive a fall like this - nothing like weapon requirements, or carrying additional gear if you semblance is something like Ren’s - which means making the fall a part of the test itself is... not great. 

Which, to be clear, is the fault of the author(s) and how much thought (or not) they’ve put into their fictional school, not the fictional school’s fault because it’s, you know, fictional. Basically, the world building in this series kind of drives me nuts, in case you haven’t noticed lol. 

Velvet does find the parachutes, oh so conveniently, and at least has the decency to give one to Sun. Also yeah, kudos for thinking to search for them in the first place. I do like the ‘survival is the only thing that counts’ theme. Cheating, lying, and the like is great when it’s used because the odds are already stacked against you. We get her agreement to try and stick close because remember, there’s nothing like a dangerous situation to remind you to be decent towards someone else. As Velvet magnanimously thinks, “Being with Sun would be better than being alone.”

Okay. Low bar, but okay. 

So they fall and we get to hear a fair bit about Vacuo’s history based on what Velvet remembers about each landmark from history class. Honestly, I’m impressed at her recall. I wouldn’t be able to dredge up class notes while falling through the air. We get an abandoned city previously hidden by sand and the somewhat confusing sentence, “These were all that was left of the underground mines, the Drylands, the site of the old Paradise Oasis, long since dried up following Dust mining and the Great War.” Are these three separate places among the rock-less area pockmarked with holes? Or is this a single area of underground mines, called the Drylands (for some reason?), that includes the contrasting place called Paradise Oasis? I’m not sure. The takeaway though is that Velvet hopes Coco isn’t heading to that ambiguously named place because she’s incredibly claustrophobic.

What I find the most informative in all this is the description of the quarries as “physical manifestations of the wounds that still ran deep in the people of Vacuo.” The overall issue of outsiders coming into Vacuo, draining it of its resources, and then taking it back to their own kingdoms (while leaving their trash behind) is the sort of theme significant to our own lives and worthy of examination in fiction… Not saying that RWBY necessarily handles this theme well - especially given the messy conflation of that generational trauma and the awful treatment of any ‘outsider’ who wanders into the kingdom - but I do appreciate when I can see the series trying. Even if it fails, effort is (to an extent) still worth acknowledgement.

What I’m less inclined to praise is the strange follow up of “maybe that was why Rumpole was sending students there.” …what does this mean? Velvet just told us the quarries are the “wounds” of Vacuo, so are they being sent there because they’re dangerous? Because huntsmen will somehow fix this?? Neither of these make sense but I literally don’t know what point Myers is trying to make… which happens a lot. Again, there’s a whole lot of wise-sounding statements in this novel that, at the end of the day, mean very little - if anything at all.

Velvet eventually lands, nearly getting pulled into one of the openings when she can’t get out of her parachute. She’s saved at the last moment by Octavia Ember, a member of Team NDGO. You know, “One of the people she least wanted to run into.” We all knew the moment Velvet worried about running into one of the crueler members of Shade that it would happen.

Their conversation is filled with heartfelt gratitude and riveting greetings:

“Thanks?” Velvet said.

“Whatever.” Octavia sheathed her blade and started walking away. That was more like it.

What is wrong with all of these people? My kingdom for a kind, enthusiastic, non-team exchange!

You know the ‘enemies forced to work together’ conflict couldn’t end there though (a trope I normally love and would likely love here except having Octavia be another stereotypical mean girl was the least innovative choice possible). She and Velvet end up heading towards the same quarry, simply because there’s nothing else for miles around. Velvet displays some quick thinking when she explains that the instructors likely hid the relics in there to ensure they weren’t forever hidden under the sand. Velvet, unlike Yatsuhashi, has also realized that there’s more to the test than just their fighting skills. They’ll be graded on everything, “Including how we treat each other.” I’m always appreciative of characters who use their brains as much as their brawns.

Perhaps that not-so-subtle nudge resonated with Octavia because she opens up a bit. By this I mean she moves from “Whatever” to telling Velvet the traumatizing story of how she lost a third of her clan to Blind Worms in one of these quarries. Okay. That’s a complete 180, but I’ll take it. Velvet continues to have supposed insights about the Vacuans like, ‘Maybe they don’t cry because that’s a waste of water?’ and ‘Maybe they hate everyone on principal because of the past?’ and ‘I guess bullying is just something you’re supposed to survive out here’ (um… no.) In Velvet - and Myers’ - defense she acknowledges that none of these explanations excuse their actions… but I’m not so sure it explains them either. A few chapters ago we were hammering home how teens don’t have an emotional connection to their past, despite it not actually being that long ago (recall Coco’s conversation with Rumpole in class), but now we’re supposed to believe that all of these teens reject newcomers because of stuff that happened during a war they weren’t alive for? Also, I’m neither a doctor nor an anthropologist, but the concept of a desert people refusing to cry because it’s a waste of water - especially in an otherwise advanced civilization - seems suspect. I can buy someone being unable to cry because they’re currently dehydrated, but a whole culture denying themselves this outlet when most of them don’t actually lack water anymore is odd.

Granted, culture isn’t always logical. Case in point: memes. So let’s give that a pass. 

However, we’ve still got the issue of continuity across paragraphs. First Velvet is smug because she’s a better climber than Octavia. Then Octavia is ahead and supposedly annoyed that Velvet was slowing her down. It’s unclear when, or if, they’ve finished climbing at this point and a second later Octavia is climbing a tree - why didn’t Velvet do that? Really, I lay little blips like this at the feet of the editors, not the author(s), simply because as an author I know precisely how easy it is to lose track of every detail you’ve introduced. It becomes obvious to the reader when things don’t quite align, but it will often go unnoticed by the writer - like typos. (RIP my own work.) Which is why you need that second perspective to not just catch the big mistakes, but tweak all the smaller ones too. RWBY is now a part of WarnerMedia and Before the Dawn was published by Scholastic. There’s a standard here I don’t think either is meeting.

As said previously though, Octavia climbs a tree because Velvet - with faunus eyes - spotted a trinket the others had missed. Octavia falls, Velvet catches her, and a whole swarm of Ravagers show up, which seem to be a bat-like grimm. Nice. My gothic, vampire, Stellaluna loving ass can get behind that. 

Behold: my childhood.

They make a run for it and we - finally - get some solidarity as Octavia admits that the relic is technically Velvet’s and Velvet wonders in turn if they can share it. I offered my kingdom for a kind exchange and I got it! Hurray! More importantly, apparently that is an option because the airbus coordinates have shown up on both their scrolls. I’m not going to pretend that I understand how that tech works, but that’s a level of world building we don’t actually need. Not unless the hypothetical of students piggybacking on another’s relic is a part of the evaluation. 

I love that Velvet used her camera flash to scare off the Ravager in their way. That’s a fantastic twist on the ‘Velvet will use her semblance and impress Octavia’ expectation as well as a great way to demonstrate that she is a formidable fighter, capable of paying attention to her situation/surroundings and responding accordingly.

There are more Ravagers though, incoming Blind Worms, an avalanche… and the airbus. A narrow escape indeed. Octavia drops that attention-catching, “Thank the Brothers” as they reach safety.

Going back to my earlier point about Shade seeming happy to kill its kids, apparently Velvet and Octavia were the last to reach the bus and Sun told the pilot to wait. That says good things about Sun, but horrible things about the test. If Sun hadn’t insisted on staying would Octavia and Velvet have had a way out? Why in the world wasn’t the pilot told to wait longer?? The whole timeline is confusing, with Sun and Velvet leaving the airship only a short time after everyone else, but it looks like the whole group was way ahead of them (the quarry is empty of both relics and people by the time they arrive), except Sun managed to get super far ahead of Velvet somehow, and their pilot was apparently working under an unspoken deadline… I’m just taking information at face value because if you try to piece it all together, good luck.

Also sorry, but I straight up laughed at Sun’s “You woke up the Ravagers. And you lived to tell the tale.” That is so unnecessarily dramatic. Oh no. Not the Ravagers. Literally the first thing I thought of was some B horror movie like

Coming only to a streaming service near your couch because we’re still living through a pandemic. Wear your masks, friends!

Back to this very entertaining reaction. Sun, you and Velvet have both taken out Atlesian knights, you fought a gigantic sea monster with Blake, and Velvet just bypassed a nest of Ravagers with a simple bright light. If RWBY is going to randomly try and make the grimm threatening again, do it with stuff that actually reads as a significant threat to these fighters. After you’ve got your first years blasting through (Yang) and riding (Nora) bear grimm at initiation, a couple of bat grimm just doesn’t cut it. 

Moving on, Velvet’s iffy perspective rears its head once more as she thinks, “What if Sun had passed by the trinket in the tree, knowing it would be too dangerous to retrieve it? She and Octavia had not had that luxury.”

There’s a lot wrong with this theory: 

How do you know Sun has better vision, even as a fellow faunus? As Volume 7’s Tyrian attack brought to the surface, supposedly not every faunus has that advantage.

Velvet straight up says that she wasn’t able to see the Ravagers, otherwise she would have warned Octavia about them. The whole point is that they startled her and she fell. So what, Sun not only has faunus vision but better than Velvet’s? (Do monkeys have better vision than rabbits? I have no idea, but this is the kind of stuff I would google if I wanted to potentially draw attention to it in my book). 

If that trinket was too dangerous to retrieve, why did the instructors put it there in the first place? Fox mentioned things being unfair with his lack of sight, but that’s a pretty big difference: easy grabs in a supposedly abandoned quarry vs. a grab that wakes up the whole nest of grimm.

“She and Octavia had not had that luxury” why does this sound like another dig at Sun? Like it’s worth criticizing that he… got there first? Got lucky with the relics closer to the floor? Probably because everything is a dig at Sun in this book, including Velvet’s surprise that he might have “respect in his eyes.” Velvet! He was just asking about you, made the bus wait, and has always worn his heart on his sleeve! Sun’s respect/care is not in question, only how he chooses (at times) to display it.

Not that the story seems to get that. We can’t work through Sun’s questionable choices if we’re stuck in this never ending loop of ‘He’s so annoying/incompetent/willfully cruel’ into ‘Hark! is that a positive trait I see?’ and then back to ‘Never mind he’s awful.’ Maybe Velvet’s pride at his reaction to the Ravagers will finally move things forward.

Which is where we leave off. The airbus scares off the other Ravagers with its guns, the group heads back towards Shade (or a second part of the test? That did feel too much like a normal initiation to be fair), and Velvet ends with the equally dramatic line, “The initiation ritual had been hard and almost deadly, and even worse was yet to come: the assignment of the new teams.”

I have to say though, that is the most teen-accurate thought I’ve seen so far. An 18 year old would be more scared of their team social life than getting eaten by a monster lol.

On that note, drop a comment or an ask if you feel like being social yourself and I’ll see you during the next burst of NaNoWriMo energy! 💜

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