#“I hate him because he's manipulative” (even though that's barely expanded by the narrative)

[aleksanderscult]

Fandom: Darklina stans are delulu, Darkling apologists have no proof.

Also the fandom:

I'm sorry, when did this happen? What is this?? I don't think it happened in the show and it definitely didn't happen in the books. When did the darkling ever tell Alina to hate Zoya? Or vise versa?

Zoya decided herself that for some reason she was the darkling's favorite just because "he kept her busy" and because she had daddy issues. She wasn't even close to him in the books. His close soldiers were heartrenders and his personal otkasatsya guards. She decided she was entitled to her boss's attention for some reason and started being horrible to Alina because she had his attention because of her powers. As if that's an understandable reason to crack Alina's ribs?? And in turn, Alina didn't like Zoya only because she bullied her. How is Aleksander at fault here? How is a general to blame in a petty teenage girl drama? He didn't even say manipulative things to make them dislike each other or anything. In the show, Zoya is making moves on him and he outwardly plainly tells her that he doesn't have time for hookups because the sun summoner is missing and the country is going to shit.

And these people think they correctly analyzed Aleksander's character? Or Alina's and Zoya's?

Sorry for ranting, I just can't keep it in anymore. I need to hear somebody else's thoughts on this.

Ah yes... That post.

I talked about it here as well.

But look. It's funny how his antis make up brand new scenarios about how he manipulated everyone in that book because they somehow need to make him seem as "evil" as possible. It's as if his canon self isn't enough for them to hate him. They must make him worse themselves!

Seriously, does anyone believe the Darkling had even some spare time to do that?

Aside from the fact that he had to:

1) Lead an army

2) Attend councils

3) Travel from Ravka's one side to the other

4) Make sure the Grisha were stationed at their appropriated posts

5) Sign papers

He also needed to make room for his "special manipulative plan" taking place at 20:00 just before supper.

Guys, even Alina, when she took over his position, found herself exhausted from all the responsibilities that were placed on her shoulders.

Also, as far as I can remember Zoya attacked Alina just one day after the former arrived at the Little Palace from her own duties. And Alina didn't like her because she suspected of her little one night stand with Mal.

But what do I say??

According to our antis' claims this is what the Darkling actually does:

The antis preach how knowledgeable they are about the book material and the next minute they start talking about the most unrelated shit that has ever unrelated.

I have never seen an anti make a meta about the Darkling and these kind of accusations with excerpts from the book. Just saying :)

[miscellaneousramblings]

The world is cruel and unfair. My thoughts about the end of SnK.

This is a post about my feelings re: the end of SnK. I try to mix a bit of analysis and express where, in my opinion, it went wrong.

I’ve only read the last chapter once for now. Managed to avoid every spoiler until the official release. What can I say? I think this ending is disappointing and unsatisfying, despite not being The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Read. It’s serviceable at best, which by default is underwhelming in a work that has almost always tried to go above what we usually see in comparable pieces of fiction. Over almost 140 chapters, SnK offered its readers genuine emotions, either positive or negative, and, until this final chapter, managed to stay true to its themes. But this final chapter is basically a 4/10 or 5/10 ending in an overall 9.5/10 story.

I hope that, after the initial shock of the ending, I’ll be able to look back on it, not fondly, but with a bit more appreciation for some of its (too few) genuinely good moments. I also hope it won’t sour the experience of reading SnK too much for me. Of course, I accept the ending, I accepted it literally the moment I read it even though I saw it go further and further from my expectations and understanding of the story by the second. And obviously, I respect Isayama as a writer and genuinely cherish some parts of this manga.

But I won’t ever think this ending was good, and am going to try to explain why.

First, something quite subjective. I think the chapter lacked genuine emotion. I didn’t feel much of anything, except a crushing sentiment of sadness and a bit of anger when I saw Mikasa alone by Eren’s grave at the end. A lot of what happened felt either incomplete or forced, and often both. For example, I had imagined the moment the curse of Ymir broke would be the most beautiful moment in the manga, but instead it just... happened? This was supposed to be the peak of this story, the miracle that all these terrible sacrifices were made in the name of. I keep thinking about the moment the curse breaks at the end of Fruits Basket (a great read btw) and how genuinely emotional this chapter is even though the genre is different from SnK’s. Considering Isayama’s talent when portraying emotions, I can’t help but feel terribly underwhelmed by his version of this moment, which should have made us feel like everything was worth it, but didn’t.

Second, the pacing in this last arc (and especially post 123) was messy. I know it’s easy to criticize as a reader, but objectively, spending 7 chapters on the alliance going from point X to point Y and not giving the main character the spotlight he deserves is a major mistake. I kept holding hope that all of the buildup since chapter 130 was going to amount to the last 2-3 chapters slapping extremely hard (like, say, the Grisha-centered chapters in return to Shiganshina, or the Reiner-Eren conversation in Marley), but for the first time, Isayama disappointed me in that regard.

While mostly uninteresting fights got dragged out, some plot points were almost forgotten. Some setups never got a proper conclusion. Eren barely got the time to explain his motivations or what he saw. Historia’s conversation from chapter 130 never got an ending. The parasite and Ymir literally disappeared even though they were the focus of the last two chapters before this one. Some memory shards went unexplained. We never got to see Grisha’s death even when this panel exists?

Regardless of the actual things I don’t like in the ending, I think it would have been more palatable if this last stretch of chapters had been given time to breathe, if only to expand on the characters’ motivations or give us more interactions (for example, Eren’s talks with Annie, Reiner, Connie...).

Third, characterisation and themes. Oh boy. My favourite character is Eren, and my other favourites are Mikasa, Armin, Reiner and Zeke. I think that among these five, the only one who got a true, complete character arc was Armin (and arguably Zeke as well, though the lack of resolution between him and Eren is a hate crime towards me, specifically). Reiner had a great character arc overall but his last appearance in the manga was distateful and a regression. I won’t expand on it.

Mikasa... my poor girl. My most charitable take about her ending is that Isayama wanted to portray her inner strength, the fact she can always live on in the face of adversity and cherish her own life despite the setbacks while remembering those she loves. Well, I guess he succeeded. But in a weirdly unsatisfying way, because this renders her character arc entirely cyclical. Those qualities have characterised Mikasa since the start. It’s established since the very first arc that she’s prideful, brave, and that she has the inner strength to live without Eren if he ever disappears from this world. But the way Isayama made it happen? Having her kill him and then cry next to his grave in the final panels of the manga is what her arc amounted to? I had always hoped that Mikasa could actually save Eren from himself and show him how to live and share his burdens with him (all things that have been foreshadowed in the manga itself, btw). I thought her tattoo would hold some significance, either by

A/ being transmitted to her potential child with Eren were he to survive (didn’t happen)

B/ foreshadowing a future political role for her as a bridge between Hizuru and Paradis (didn’t happen, and furthermore she’s the only alliance member living in Shiganshina and is deliberately separated from the rest of them)

C/ having some kind of supernatural power that would allow her to change the game, were she to enter paths or reach the coordinate (didn’t happen).

So what? In the end, Mikasa’s Big Choice amounted to giving up on her love (but also not really because she’s never going to be able to move on and isn’t allowed to feel anything else but pain), resulting in her losing her family for the third time and never being able to welcome Eren home. This is horrifyingly sad. I’m also frankly disturbed by the sort of ~parallel Eren establishes in this chapter between Ymir and Mikasa, about the topic of love. So the message of SnK was that... love is a chain? Everything happened because Ymir was too attached to the King and couldn’t leave this world, so Mikasa had to show her that she could give up on love for the greater good by killing Eren? I wish I just misunderstood this but that’s what I got from the chapter and I hate it. Also, I really thought Isayama was above the traditional “female character who sacrifices everything and never reaches happiness but stays quiet and endures for the common good” trope. I was wrong.

Mikasa might have been the centerpiece of the story, but she got the short end of the stick. At this point, the writing pretty much does the opposite of what it is supposed to by inadvertently justifying the validity of Mikasa and Eren’s “selfish” dream in chapter 138. Initially, I thought that their dream was wrong and not something truly enviable because in it, they led a life of guilt and regret while knowing full well that Eren would end up dying anyway, leaving Mikasa behind, alone. Naively, I thought that surely choosing the responsible path would be more rewarding for Mikasa, one way or the other. But as it turns out, the path of selflessness also led her to a life of solitude, except now she carries her burdens all on her own without having tasted happiness. Amazing. I genuinely do not know how I am supposed to root for this.

Finally... Eren. Oh boy. Oh, good lord. I’ll admit I wanted him to live, but I was also ready to accept an ending where he dies. But... not like this. I already said I don’t like the fact Mikasa killed him, but what I like even less is the lack of general resolution his character received. He’s the MC for god’s sake! But post-chapter 123, he has received second, if not third-grade treatment, save from chapter 131, which was brilliant.

Overall, his motivations are a mess, which I get. Him getting confused because of all his powers and memories is understandable. Him having conflicting motivations is actually appealing to me. He wanted to save Eldia, but was also disappointed in the outside world (when he says “I would have done it anyway”, I thought about what he said to Ramzi and the "scenery” in 131) , and wished for his friends to become heroes. I get it, it’s fine.

But Isayama went too far with the tragic aspect of his character. As in, there is no catharsis, just crushing pain. Isayama deliberately went overkill by stating that Eren killed 80% of humanity (what the hell), and, even worse, actually drove Dina to Carla. I literally couldn’t believe this. I have seen people theorize about this months ago and immediately discarded it by thinking it was ridiculous and amount to character assassination. To make things clear, I’m not discussing Eren’s actions in the last arc from a moralistic point of view, because this would be another topic entirely, I’m talking about what makes sense in the narrative that has been presented to us since the Paths chapters started and Eren’s plan was revealed. For example, however awful the contents of the scene was, Eren manipulating Grisha to kill the Reiss family was not only amazingly written and drawn in chapter 121 but also narratively motivated by the fact he needed the Founding Titan’s power. This scene also had other functions, such as revealing the Attack Titan’s premonition powers or making Zeke interact with Grisha and understand the truth about his father. Compared to this, the “moment” we have in 139, this abrupt, absurd revelation about him indirectly killing his mother is rushed and nonsensical. Even if this was to kickstart the whole story by awakening his hatred for the titans, I can’t help but feel shaken by how... gratuitous a “plot-twist” it is. What does it say about the attachment Eren had to his mother and her words to him? (”because he was born into this world”). This nullifies one of the most impactful scenes of the manga, because the ending makes it clear that in the end, existing as a human being by the simple virtue of being born wasn’t enough for him. It just couldn’t be, for some reason that I’m yet to fully understand. Instead, he endured and endured, and never got to experience the simple, humane existence Carla wished for him. So were these beautiful words a lie all along? Why did Isayama go to such an extreme with Dina? The only conclusion I can come to is that it’s because he needed Eren to be absolutely, totally irredeemeable. Eren needed, storywise, to be this unstoppable extremist who would get burned to ashes by his uncontrollable desires.

Because yes, apparently, Eren had to die. There was no escape. Worst of all, Eren died a slave. A slave to his desire for freedom. A slave to the destiny he saw at age 15. A slave to his titan powers. This is what I truly can’t forgive about this ending. I won’t stand for the “but he chose this” answer, because it was a choice made out of despair, and all the alternatives are presented as non viable by the narrative (are they really though? or is it just a cope-out to justify the last arc of the manga unfolding as it did?). In short, Isayama justifies this “choice” that was forced on Eren by telling us: his life was destined to be short, he had a violent side he just wouldn’t repress, Mikasa didn’t give him the answer he wanted, he was overwhelmed by what he saw, and their enemies were zeroing in on them. Canonically, all of this made him start the Rumbling. Fine. But I always thought that, at the end of it all, even if Eren were to die, this narrative would be challenged. That Eren would at least have a big cathartic moment, and that he would make another choice upon realising that the freedom he looked for was illusory, and that he would fight to the bitter end for what was right, what he truly wanted, before finally either going to rest or living on with the burden of his actions but the support of his loved ones. I wished for the perfect blend of bitterness and hope. The tragedy of irredeemeable actions completed by the powerful liberation of free will. The idea that change is possible.

But what did we get instead? Eren reaffirming that the Rumbling would have happened anyway while feeling tremendous guilt, as usual (living a life with regrets, and consequently, a death with regrets), refusing the support Armin was ready to lend him (refusing to even try to defy what he thinks is his destiny and pushing others away again) and erasing the memories of all his friends after having manipulated them into ending him against their wishes (going against the most basic concept of freedom). And because we as readers and he as a character have to suffer until the very end, Eren finally clearly expressed his wish to live, to stay with Mikasa and his friends. Only to die 5 pages later, for good.

The main character of this story truly died as a disembodied head, in a titan’s mouth, killed by the person he loved the most before being buried in a nameless grave. One of his mottos was “fight”, but in the end, he didn’t. He let fate happen. In a story about freedom, this is unfathomable. This is beyond the realm of sadness for me, and I’m leaning more and more towards indignation. Where was his dignity as a character? I know that Mikasa, Armin and the others know “the truth about him” but I’m sorry, this isn’t enough. Now, if I ever get the strength to re-read SnK, I won’t be able to look at Eren without thinking about all the things he sacrificed: love, friendship, happiness, humanity, morals, principles, justice, freedom, the lives of countless others, the peace of mind of the person he loves, and his own life. A sacrifice so great should have gotten us a reward as great, if not greater. But we only got the end of the titan curse, without even an apparition or a word from Ymir, the one who actually started all of this, and now Paradis is ruled by the Yeagerists or something. The wings of freedom defaced by two rifles. How great. How satisfying.

In the end, I can’t really fathom what Isayama wanted to say with this chapter. The story itself, the 138 chapters that preceded it seemed clear to me. The world is cruel but also very beautiful. But after having read 139, I don’t know where the freedom the characters chased is. I don’t know why love was portrayed as something so precious but also something that in the end was predestined to be discarded. I don’t know why characters such as Mikasa went against fate only to be crushed by it further down the road.

I never thought that SnK would go into this almost grimdark direction, but it did. I can barely find the beauty in this chapter. Mikasa’s last panels are heartbreaking, but even the strength of her love can’t shine through the countless sacrifices the characters - and especially she and Eren - made, for the sake of a future that already seems extremely compromised. I guess that all in all, the world’s cruelty overshadows everything, and those who make the greatest sacrifices also are those who never get repaid. The world is unfair. I know that, but it was my naive wish that reading a piece of fiction would help me take my mind off this reality by showing me there is also more to it.

PS: the best moment in the chapter was those panels:

Finally, even if it was too little and too late, someone showed Eren he wasn’t alone, and didn’t need to be. RIP, my beautiful boy. You truly did deserve better than what this story allowed you to be.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 3

So i have seen smidgens of this on tumblr but just havent had time to do anything about it

and jesus christ Callie Jade is so horrifyingly creepy, and you know the things she’s narrating the characters can also hear which is also hilarious, it just reminds me of that comic about how “yeah sure there’s a giant ominous red floating eyeball in your kitchen, constantly staring, constantly judging, but can you be sure that’s a bad thing?”

and then someone tries to talk to it, but it doesn’t answer and the person goes “fine be an asshole i dont give a fuck”

thats exactly the dynamic happening with Callie Jade right now

Grumpy DaveKat is hilarious

and Hey! we finally get to see how people look, I really dig Roxy’s look

“ROXY: dude doesnt "believe" in "substances"”

This line from Roxy makes sense, as a person wholly ensconced in the idea of their own self and always being in control of themselves and their own mind and faculties they would hate anything at all that causes that iron mental grip to slip

That’s probably why Dirk avoided sleep even when his dreamself was awake, even sleeping and dreaming was considered a form of himself losing control over himself that he couldn’t integrate the idea himself and his dreamself were the same person rather than two identical people and also I remember that the Jujupop didn’t affect him either

Later on Dirk in the narrative will say something about his own trauma, but not really go into what it is, but if I had to hazard a guess (and really it’s not much of a guess at this point)

Dirk probably has memories of a version of himself being under the mental influence of another, Lil Cal, LE, Doc Scratch etc what have you, So Narrative Dirk may actually be a version of Dirk who’s not quite yet poisoned into being a version of those 3, but his words also hinted that just because he’s aware of a certain way that he’s acting doesn’t make him more likely to stop it

Like he’s equating that you can be aware of the influence something else is having on you and in the exact ways it is influencing you without being able to stop, the exact thing he is traumatized and afraid of being most likely

So his one driving fear, is he does not want to lose control of his own soul, his own being, his own way of life and existing, to something else, something other. Even though he most likely is fully aware of the things and mannerisms of the other that have slipped into himself? Like he’s probably fully aware of the similarities between himself and those mentioned above, but maybe the thing that he’s hinging on is that instead of those guys poisoning him into being like them, instead perhaps he can convince himself that it’s his own self influencing others to act like himself instead. His influence reaching out and expanding instead of shrinking as he fears it

Anyway, Dave and Kanaya have a cute moment, I really like that

We get a nice shot of them in shadows against a backdrop of stars and Kanaya starts talking about a story Rose would once tell so that’s story is already gonna be dripping in metaphorical potential

“ A Wriggler Story About A Young Prince And The Beloved Flower He Loved And Lost”

Though that’s a story I’m actually familiar with

KANAYA: A Singular Wild Rose He Failed To Cherish When He Had Her

KANAYA: And His Journey Of Discovering What She Meant To Him All Along

KANAYA: Culminating In A New Quest To Find Her And Win Her Back

KANAYA: The Story Comments On The Nature Of Friendship

KANAYA: And Of Course In Turn Love

KANAYA: How Once They Connect There Is No Distance Or Circumstance That Can Seperate Them

KANAYA: How The Worlds In Each Ones Mind Take On Contours Shaped By Their Memories Of The Other

KANAYA: Places And Moments And Orbiting Passersby Becoming More and More Entangled In The Context Of Their Mutual Affections

KANAYA: Such As With A Garden Calling To Mind An Engagement Once Declared There

KANAYA: Or Something To That Fucking Effect

So obviously Dirk and Rose

Dirk has Rose with him, discovers an actual genuine connection with her, likely because he already viewed her as an equal, despite his manipulations of her, and chapter 4 spoilers but he genuinely wants to play a game with her when there really isn’t any reason for it, so he is actually curious to see who comes out on top of it, Him or Her, so Dirk is probably in some way desperate to have an actual equal partner in some way instead of drowning in himself all the time, not surprising. But Rose, obviously, will leave and reject him, likely when the manipulation comes around and is revealed/Kanaya and all them reach her/that part of the story

But then the story tinges onto a romantic nature and is framing Dirk trying to get her back as a romantic quest to save his partner/friend something something love and friendship, “no distance can separate them” yeah that doesn’t sound like obsession with the first person you’ve ever truly seen as an equal/a real person, 

yeah “A Garden calling to Mind an engagement once declared there” definitely sounds like the garden of eden/adam and eve paradise fantasy that Dirk has been trying  for some reason, to setup on the new planet

Really begs the question for why Dirk cares at all to do all of this? Except we now the answer is already its not the thing itself he cares about, its the value hes putting into the story as something that generates interest in the audience

He doesn’t care about actually making a society or being gods or whatever, he just knows thats what the audience wants to see and cares about so therefore he does it

and the reason he does all of THAT is because is ties into his trauma of his sense of self eroding away becoming a person he’s unfamiliar with

I wonder how he’s going to handle how much he’s going to change in order to fit the role of the story he’s writing when all is said and done

the Dirk at the end of this is going to be very different than the Dirk that started in Homestuck, despite all of his fears and intentions, and that he could not say all of it wasnt his own doing because of the iron control he made sure to have from the very beginning, I honestly think that will be kind of a shock for him if a meeting like that ever one day happened

Specifically for the fact that he seems to be aware of the romantic in nature tropes hes writing himself and Rose into and for now still seems to be avoiding them, not having gone that far, but, well

Maybe this is where we’ll start to see where Doc Scratch’s odd tendencies starting coming from

You know he was always really weird with Rose and Vriska (Maybe because he sees Light players all as extensions of Rose herself?)

Anyway yeah this is def the story metaphor I think we’re going to see in this, but Kanaya doesn’t fully get it, she thinks the story refers to herself and Rose

DAVE: that seems kind of wack for a kids story

KANAYA: Its Possible I Am Projecting Slightly In This Specific Circumstances

KANAYA: It Was Just A Metaphor

KANAYA: But In A Way I Feel As If It Is the Greater Universe Trying To Tell Me Something

KANAYA: It May Simply Stem From My Longing To See Her Again And How Much Is Indicative Of Something More Sinister

Which is cool because it makes this opposing connection between Dirk and Kanaya as opposites, which I like because it solidifies a tiny bit more the idea of Sylph being Passive Create to A Prince’s Active destroy.

Oh yeah, there was a tiny hint of Mind metaphor as well, can’t forget Terezi is with them

KANAYA: How The Worlds In Each Ones Mind Take On Contours Shaped By Their Memories Of The Other

KANAYA: Places And Moments And Orbiting Passersby Becoming More and More Entangled In The Context Of Their Mutual Affections

KANAYA: Such As With A Garden Calling To Mind An Engagement Once Declared There

Basically the idea that your experiences of a person and your memories of them shape who they become as well, the boundary between you and I is controlled by both of us, so each has an effect of the personality Heart of the other through our own decisions and Mind

like the way people tend to mimic those they like and want to be close to, or the way they actively try to distance themselves and what they are like from those they hate

But that at all seems to be more about Mind in general than referring to anything specifically Terezi

though it is exactly that understanding of Mind versus Heart and how one affects the other that could make Dirk realize that in the question of the self he’s only had half the picture the whole time, he’s only had the understanding of Heart and has thus far not been able to understand how Mind plays a role in the sustaining of the self, how what other people do to help you to be you, which is his entire philosophical conundrum

“DAVE: the dude youve spent the last 7 years convincing yourself isnt an egomaniacal anime villain

DAVE: and who isnt actually lying in wait to completely decimate your life and your emotions and shit“

oh, that makes me sad, this is def bringing up some bad trains of thought for Dave ):

“ KARKAT: KANAYA BARELY EVEN TALKS, CALLIOPE WON’T LEAVE THEIR CABIN, JADE JUST FLOATS AROUND LIKE A CREEPY BALLOON THAT’S MOSTLY MADE OF HAIR.

OH RIGHT, I forgot Calliope is actually WITH them on their journey, despite seeming to want absolutely fuck all with Jade Callie, I totally thought she was gonna stay back on Earth C but I guess not!

It’s so odd to see them so terrified of their alternate self like this when they’ve interacted mildly before. I still don’t know what to think of that much, other than they seem to be doing that weird thing that the other kids went through, like how John scribbled clowns on the walls unknown to himself for the longest time due to Gamzee’s unseen mental influence

that’s exactly the type of shit Dirk would be afraid of, so I wonder if that’s what Callie was afraid of as well? Maybe its Jade Callie that’s influencing them this way not Gamzee, to scribble strange things on the walls and not come out, but it’s the same fear of the other regardless manifesting and changing the self.

It is a very oddly non social thing for Our Calliope to do, when the point of different between the two Callie’s was how social Calliope was versus how antisocial Jade Callie is. Worries me ): but at least they’re here I guess

KARKAT: SOMETIMES IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE WHATEVER SLATHERING MONSTROSITY OF A COSMIC HELLBEAST THAT PUT ALL THIS SHIT INTO MOTION...ACTUALLY LIKES ME?

ROXY: fucked up if tru

Karkat is really popular as a character in the fandom lol

and that’s that one, time to get to Chapter 4, which has a lot more juicy exposition

With all the Garden of Eden metaphors though I can’t help but think of the Apple of the Garden of Eden when I think of “story exposition” now

The juicy tantalizing forbidden red fruit that when you bit into it you suddenly understand and know things you did not before and you’re eyes are opened, I wonder if that’s enough to just make Apples a solid Symbol of Light in Homestuck’s context? Most of it’s association with knowledge is external to Homestuck, just referenced symbolically, it’s not actually used in any cirumstances pertaining to knowledge, but more as the metaphor of it being the gate to leave the garden of eden, more like a teleporter, Rapture and Revelation in general rather than just Knowledge itself

aka my new headcanon is that one thing needed to Alchemize a Transportalizer is inexplicably going to be an Apple, if that ever comes up at all

[giantpredatorymollusk]

This is a story about farming. It is quite long. I think it may be worth reading anyway, but unfortunately I have no way to prove it. I’ve also tried my best but I still don’t know if it actually makes perfect sense in every way? But it did all actually happen; so it all kind of has to make at least a little bit of sense, even if doesn’t really seem like it.

The trouble all started in 1901, when my great great grandfather emigrated to the United States from the modern-day Czech Republic and later, in 1911, bought a 90-acre farm there. Many years later, most of that farm came to belong to my grandfather, and roughly 10 years back he retired from his job selling tires at the tire store and started making the 40 mile drive north to the farm to spend his summer days there and plant a garden (in the area that wasn’t already rented out to be planted with soybeans.) Not long after that, he had enough produce to start selling stuff at a nearby farmers’ market in an upscale town, physically not far from the farm, although psychogeographically immensely distant from that chunk of desolate, isolated, fairly representative rural Ohio.

I was dragged in in the summer of 2015, from the end of June to the beginning of July, mostly pounding stakes into the ground so that the roughly 1000-1500 tomato plants that my grandfather had planted that year (with occasional help from my grandmother and uncle) could be tied up between them and the fruit wouldn’t lay on the ground and rot easily. I hated it there (in fairness, I probably would’ve hated anything that involved leaving the house during that time in my life) and when my dad got me out of it (by hiring me to help him paint a house) I quickly divested myself of the money I’d received there to wash my hands of the place and resolved never to go back. My dad was never in favor of me going to the farm, knowing as he did that the work could be dangerous (operating old, large, and unreliable tractors and backhoe with minimal training or safety precautions; running large, dangerous power saws in creative ways without the proper guards, gear, or safety precautions, mostly to put points on stakes; operating saws in an unsafe manner while standing in the raised bucket of the old and unreliable backhoe in order to trim trees; etc) and probably also suspected that I personally (especially then) was fairly vulnerable to being psychologically manipulated into performing difficult tasks that I was unhappy doing over a long period of time while being underpaid under some circumstances. Hmm.

I returned to the farm for the entirety of the summer of 2016. After barely surviving/graduating my senior year of high school that year I had given up on life and settled pretty quickly back into the routine of the daily back-and-forth farm trips. It is true that I was getting paid; it was also true that I was being challenged and learning things, mostly the basics of planting vegetables, like which plants were cold-season crops and which were warm-season and how far apart to space the transplants, and how a PTO works on a tractor; and it’s certainly a fact that on a personal level, I was still completely taken in by my grandfather’s wit and farm wisdom and overpowering managerial confidence. I made myself completely subordinate to him, and blamed myself when his ideas for what we should be doing next were completely obvious to him but rather opaque to me; I remember it frequently happening that he would tell me what to do and I would reflexively go off to do it, and then realize I was unclear on what he meant and have to timidly re-approach him for further instructions. This kind of slowed down the learning process. Much later I would also realize how superficial his constant confidence could be, and how it was often less the natural attitude of someone who knew what they were doing and more a tool he used to impress people into doing things without thinking too much about any of the potential alternatives. Also, according to my admittedly fallible memories, I was getting paid $35 per day for what were generally between 7 and 8 hour days. I was, in fact, 18 years old that year and probably could have gotten a different job that for one thing paid a better hourly wage and for another left me less reliant on the caprices of my family; but this was neither a thing that happened nor a thing that was expected from me, least of all by me. My internal world hadn’t expanded as I’d grown older; my universe of possibilities was limited to the things that were already present in my somewhat simple life. This was probably symptomatic of some larger problem or problems with the functionality of my brain at that point in my life.

One can become trapped in many different ways. You can be trapped in a specific city, or a zip code, or in a geographic region sorely lacking in cities, or one which they are considered entirely strange and outlandish things; in a job, in a career, in a lifestyle, or in a set of lifestyles considered realistic given your high school grades, ability to connect with others, and standing in society and life; in a friend group, or in an identity, or in a lack thereof, or in any number of the various rules and regulations that govern how one is allowed to interact with the rest of the human race; in a comedy, a tragedy, a pastoral narrative, or in any combination of the above kinds of story that one no longer wishes to be part of. For all I know, thanks to the stereotypical farm benefits of character building, meaningful work experiencing, and nature connecting-with, working at the farm for that year may have actually been good for me; nevertheless, I wish that it had been my last full summer there. I had showed up, learned some stuff, earned a small amount of money, and, in retrospect experienced at least the majority of what this particular 90 acre area of the planet had had to offer. Alas.

2017! This year, we had a pretty consistent schedule that I can remember clearly to this day: we left at 9:30 AM, when my grandfather would pull into my driveway and blow his horn, and got back between 7 and 8 o’clock at night. Built into that schedule is a one hour commute each way (we both lived about 40 miles away from the farm, which was actually inhabited by my uncle, who was often around and occasionally helped with the work but frequently made fairly abrasive and critical comments (if often correct) comments about it (for example, about the fact that our work day started so late in the morning)) and a daily grocery store stop for drinks for the cooler. I was the driver (once my grandfather’s problems with what I suspect is undiagnosed narcolepsy had almost killed us a couple of times) which you would think give me control over the stereo, but I quickly learned that my grandfather had pretty specific taste in music (country from the 50s and 60s) and a temperament unsuited to most podcasts. Obviously, most of that time in the daily schedule was taken up by the work day (so generally either planting tomatoes (which gets a little less rewarding after about the 500th one, which that year only put us at about a quarter of the way through the tomato plants, not counting the hundreds of eggplant, cabbage, and zucchini plants or the miscellaneous corn, squash, and beans), pounding stakes and tying string for the tomatoes, or harvesting tomatoes) which lay at the end of the lonely highway on a lonely work site at which the same 2-4 people showed up every day. (It became four people once you counted my younger brother, who came up to the farm that year until the start of marching band season got him out of it, and who fortunately made it his main job to get everyone to pack up and leave promptly at the end of the day. Once he stopped showing up, and even though I persuaded my grandfather to move the schedule up an hour so that we could get home earlier, we never left as consistently as we did when he was there; I didn’t have the stamina to find my grandfather (who didn’t carry a phone or a watch) and tell him what time it was at the end of the day every single day so that he could start to think about leaving.) I was being paid $40 a day, with a $20 bonus for market days once they started, which with our theoretically 35-hour work week ends up being about $6.29 an hour? Huh. In addition to the extra $20, the market season was nice because picking stuff is less tiring and more rewarding than planting stuff, and because I got to see way more people every day in the form of our market customers, even if I was interacting with them mainly through the intermediary of my grandfather.

Another nice thing is that this is the first year I have a decent photo album for! I started experimenting with old 35mm film cameras in late June and by early July I had my first interchangeable-lens digital camera, which I relied upon to keep my brain alive for large parts of the summer. I have… a lot of pictures from this season.

Finally, at the end of the year, I ended up in college. Any criticisms of my grandfather that I might offer up here have to be tempered by the fact that he did in fact drive me to the local (relatively) cheap higher-education dispenser and basically registered me for me (technically, I applied but there’s a 100% acceptance rate.) This was something I desperately wanted to do but was unable to make happen by myself. I won’t say that my grandfather every really understood the problems I went through while experiencing formal education, but as perhaps the member of my family least comfortable himself with the concept and culture of higher education, he was the most willing to notice and accept that I needed help getting started with it.

However, I did do quite badly that semester (I started out enrolled in 4.5 classes and ended enrolled in 2, with a C average) and going to the farm to work 4 days a week still (after morning classes and also on Saturday) did not help that except in that it provided a convenient distraction from it; an opportunity for me to distract myself from my frustrations by wearing myself out.

Why did I come back to the farm for 2018? I wasn’t happy there in 2017, I have the journal entries to prove it. Reasons: it was the path of least resistance, it was something I was more already familiar with than any other job, and my grandfather remained a very difficult person for me to say no to. (Also, he asked me (and my brother) to commit in midwinter, when it still seemed non-threatening and pretty far away.) The schedule was pretty much the same as I described for last year except that for some reason we went up 6 days a week as often as 5 (weather permitting.) My brother went up with us for the same period of time as he had previously, but was even more ornery this year than he was the last, which was an accomplishment; this didn’t stop me from being grateful for his presence. Mostly, I recruited him to work on whatever I was working on during the day, whenever I had a specific project: like building a fence around the second patch, or digging drainage ditches on the lawn, or moving the rainwater collection tank trailer to water stuff before Grandpa could realize that something that he didn’t plan for us was happening. My uncle became extremely fond of complaining that we were getting less done working on the same thing together than we might have working on different things far apart; this may have been true, but I was unwilling to test the theory.

As I implied above, I had a lot more freedom this year to pick projects that I thought needed to be done instead of following instructions all day, as long as I could seem confident about it under scrutiny later. I responded in two ways: I started wearing earbuds and listened to music and occasionally podcasts for most of the day, which was great except that it ruined earbuds and made me feel slightly spacey like I wasn’t even physically there sometimes, given that it was the main input that was actually making it to my brain, and I gave myself three new jobs. The first was to pick, display, and sell produce at a roadside stand that I set up back home (ideally without attracting too much attention from my uncle, who was doing the same thing); the second was to start picking for and selling at a new weekday farmers’ market; and the third was to fix an old dump truck that had been sitting in the back barn for the better part of the decade with a broken brake line, with the help of my dad, who came up to the farm a few days to show me what to actually do. The stand was very successful but 20% went to my mom for stocking it during the day and another 20% went to my grandfather for owning the farm; the new farmers’ market only required me to pay off my grandfather but had too many vendors for the customer base and was generally very slow; and the truck project was a huge disaster that consumed countless hours and brain cells: one brake line burst after another, we ended up having to remove and replace the two brake cylinders in each of the back wheels (which necessitated jacking the 12.5 ton vehicle up and removing both rear wheels and axles), the wiring for the lights was fucked from a previous botched repair job by a person or persons unknown, the bed needed to be attacked with the farm’s one working boom truck to get it to even move, and even after it was going up and down smoothly the hydraulic pump was occasionally leaking fluid, which I was neither qualified for or willing to try to fix; then, during the first test drive with a potential buyer, the radiator apparently exploded, and he convinced my grandfather to sell it to him for $1000, which was split between him, me, and my dad and uncle for helping (more or less.) I eventually calculated that with those three extra projects in addition to my regular salary (up $5 a day but without the weekly bonus, resulting in a net raise of $5 a week) I nearly made minimum wage working there that summer. (Hey, if Quinn is going to read this, I should probably note that minimum wage in Ohio was $8.15 an hour, at least when I wrote this, it’s up to $8.55 an hour now.)

Also, after going on three years of the whole “pull into Mitch’s driveway and blow the horn for a while” routine, the horn on my grandfather’s F-150 finally gave out and he locked the keys in my car while climbing inside of it to use its. (He did admit to this but also told me that I should never have left the keys inside of a car with “automatic locks.”) I had a much better spring semester this year, but it still wasn’t made easier by my 28 hours a week at the farm (plus the commute) right up until October 25th, when I finally quit.

Performance review:

Another part of my feelings about the farm that I have to mention is that the whole time I was there, I was pretty well aware that it was not nearly as productive as it should have been. One large part of this was just flawed soil management practices; by the time I got there, my grandfather had been planting mostly the same plants in mostly exactly the same spots for nearly 10 years, which is absolutely not how any of that is ever supposed to work. He sent soil samples away for analysis, got back reports prescribing long lists of fertilizers to be applied in massive quantities to help production, and then went back to using what he was planning on putting down anyway (mostly starting fertilizer (which we dragged around in 5 gallon buckets for the entire planting season), calcium spray to try to prevent previous years’ blossom end rot epidemics, and some poorly labeled sacks of miscellaneous stuff that he had gotten at a farm auction and that had been taking up space in a barn for years.) My grandfather’s managerial attitude was that all ideas were suspect unless they occurred to him first, which meant it sometimes required some stamina to get certain things done; he would ride up on the lawn mower and stare at you suspiciously if he wasn’t sure of exactly what you were doing.

Like this.

(Of course, the farm was not really run with the purpose of maximizing production, anyway. My grandfather kept it going year after year initially because he was retired, and wanted something to take up his time, and because he wanted to turn himself into a farmer; later, he got the idea that he was going to turn me into one.)

The other main obstacle to growth was the fact that we were surrounded by 80 acres of soybean fields that were at a slightly higher elevation than our plants, which meant that 2 inches of rainfall was more than enough to flood the place. This is not actually a good thing for any plant’s growth (except for cucumbers, and I guess sometimes zucchini.) I ended up (with my brother) digging hundreds of feet of drainage ditches in 2018 to try to combat this. Like, with a shovel. We had a trencher, but its hydraulic pump leaked fluid like a sieve, which had prevented it from being used for years, kind of like that dump truck I mentioned fixing earlier. Other broken down equipment included two boom trucks (one of which was specifically designed just to lay railroad ties), two full-size tractors (an Oliver and a Farm-All), a handful of mechanical tractor attachments that lay scattered throughout the barn-adjacent grass, a smallish red Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower, and a 1963 Buick Riviera.

On a personal level, going to the farm every day felt like dying? It was long hours of difficult, tedious, low-paid work in a desolate and isolated location. It was sort of like a sensory deprivation chamber, but for thoughts and feelings instead of for senses. On one hand, I regret every single miserable second of it, and hope to never see the place again for as long as I somehow manage to live (sadly unlikely); on the other hand, I do think it made me more appreciative of the moments when I do feel like I’m alive in the world, even when they’re not exactly easy ones. I have more enthusiasm for certain types of fear now, like driving to a strange and distant city to see a band play by myself, actually talking to the host in the AirBNB there, and descending into a strange subway system without really knowing how I’m going to get anywhere I’m trying to go from there; or signing up for classes for next semester without knowing exactly what they’ll be like, and talking to the strange person sitting next to me, or even just emailing the professor to ask for an explanation of an assignment that I don’t understand. It reminds me that I’m not as trapped anymore.

This contradicts what I want to be true, which is that the farm was just a background event in my life, instead of something that defined it for all of those years. The things that I was doing in the background of this, the story about farming, were the things I now realize were actually important to me at the time: taking those pictures, going back to school, the music I was listening to while I was out in the field, pounding in tomato stakes… I was also re-learning the piano in the evenings when I still had the energy. Unfortunately, the farm did define that part of my life to a large extent because of the way it served as an obstacle to me pursuing those things. The thing is, I wasn’t really trapped there, in any real physical or consequential sense; the farm took over my life because I was unable to recognize and act on the fact that I did have access to real sources of happiness.

Also, I guess the whole time I was technically committing tax evasion?

Anyway, whenever I see one of those posts about how nice it would be just to leave society and go live on a farm or something, this is what I’m thinking of.

[elizas-writing]

When Wish Fulfillment Fantasies Meet Reality: A Re-Examination of Twilight

 **CW/TW: The following piece discusses dating violence with brief mentions to sexual assault and self-harm.**

This year, the last Fifty Shades movie finally came and went, and as its popularity slowly morphs into a bad memory for pop culture, I’m thinking again about the fiction’s effect on reality, particularly wish fulfillment fantasies, self-insert stories, etc etc.

This train of thought began with the Twilight series after watching Lindsay Ellis’s video essay, “Dear Stephenie Meyer,” where she revisits the hatred surrounding said franchise. While it’s definitely not without serious flaws, Twilight was not really as bad as people made it out to be. And most of the criticism was solely about millions of young girls and their moms liking a thing because, what a shock, our society tends to hate anything feminine. I was definitely one of those teenage girls who wanted nothing to do with Twilight, surprising no one probably. Even though I had enough plot summary from friends to pick up the actual problems of the story, I just had fun hating it for the sake of hating it and disassociating with anything feminine because I was neck-deep in my weeaboo phase.

Cut to about seven years later, I took a Vampires in Pop Culture class and Twilight (the first of the series) was on the reading list. With a more mature mind, I sat down, read it, and yeah, it really was not as bad as I thought. Yes, Bella’s too one-dimensional, Edward’s still pretty creepy, and the dialogue and prose is at best, ridiculous and at worst, stale. It knows its target audience is tweens and reads as such, which unfortunately doesn’t grip me as an adult. I gave up at the baseball scene cause I was ready to gouge my eyes out if I read one more description of the weather. And give credit where it’s due, the side characters have way more fascinating stories than Bella or Edward, and it’s a shame Meyer didn’t take a chance to further expand them instead. I couldn’t find much to be angry about with the first book, and I was honestly more bored than anything. But I also cannot deny the wish fulfillment fantasy driving the narrative which drew in a large audience all those years ago.

And wish fulfillment is fine. Self-insert is fine. Teenage girls are just figuring out what confidence is, and there is some reassurance in a fantasy where the totally out-of-league man of your dreams still finds you the most fascinating human being in the world and wants to give you all his undivided attention. Not every female lead needs to be a strong independent woman who don’t need no man. I still see people write self-insert fanfictions from time to time, and they’re very sweet and tender to imagine being loved by a favorite character. We actually consume these stories more than we like to admit.

Hell, one of my favorite guilty pleasure films is The Princess Diaries. In many ways, it hits the same notes as Twilight. It’s a pure wish fulfillment fantasy where the main girl is smart, but clumsy and awkward and just wants to be invisible. Yet she finds herself on a whirlwind journey of self-discovery where others find value in her, and she even falls in love with a boy who adores her regardless of how she perceives herself. Yet The Princess Diaries is such a popular chick flick among people my age. So why is something like The Princess Diaries fondly remembered as an integral part of a millenial/Gen Z childhood while Twilight is met with disdain and disgust?

The major differences boil down to the main female protagonists: Mia and Bella. While not an overly complex character, Mia has, well, a personality. Her journey is more personal of overcoming her social anxiety and realizing how much she can contribute to the world as a public figure if she just takes the leap of faith. Getting a romance in the end is just icing on the cake when she remembers who was there for her even when she was the awkward nerd and will love her regardless of appearance or social status. It’s cheesy and hokey as chick flicks do, but it’s a satisfying wish fulfillment fantasy where the protagonist is better off than where she started and what she was looking for was right there all along.

With Bella, I barely know who she is outside of her romantic interests. Sure, the books go into more detail of her intelligence and social anxiety, but it’s never seen in film. Her life completely revolves around her relationships to the point of obsession, but we never almost see what she’s like when not caught up in the supernatural love triangle. And unfortunately, it’s a problem which worsens with each sequel. The Twilight franchise frames romance as something Bella can’t live without to the point of shutting herself in for months when the Cullens leave in New Moon, refusing to talk to her friends and family, and getting night terrors. It’s intended to make you feel sorry for Bella, but her backwards priorities make her completely pathetic on how much of her life she misses because of some boy who didn’t hesitate to cut her from his life, and she was totally fine with him leaving if he didn’t turn her into a vampire.

Prioritizing unrequited love over your own well being is such an unhealthy idea to romanticize because there is far more to life than some dumb boy who won’t return your feelings. I saw my fair share of unsatisfying romances in young adulthood hanging on by a thread for some idealized love that’s never going to happen. Even though a break up is the simplest and most effective solution for both people to take care of themselves, they continue wasting their time being unhappy with each other and latching on to the rose-tinted view of how they first fell in love. I know some people don’t like the idea that you have to love yourself before someone else, but there’s still truth to the saying where you have to understand that being in a romantic relationship will not automatically fix all your problems and guarantee a happily ever after.

Aside from getting married and having a baby which almost kills her during pregnancy, Bella doesn’t grow as a character or develop any personality, and she just gets her happy ending anyway. The Volturi hint that Bella is special because she’s unaffected by vampire powers, but that detail is shuffled to the sidelines to get more of Jacob and Edward butting heads on who she’ll choose. Most of the story’s events are outside her control and she doesn’t explore further into what they mean about her being special, and even her turning into a vampire-- not even of her own volition, but as a last ditch attempt to save her while dying in childbirth-- doesn’t change that much about her except now she’s immortal and she can bang Edward without getting knocked unconscious again.

I know Twilight is commercial romantic fiction meant to go in one ear and out the other, but it’s still such a damn waste of great lore and  build up with no pay off. And Bella is such a bore of a protagonist to follow the entire time even for a blank slate who is meant to be easily identifiable for teenage readers. Again, not every female character needs to wield a sword or be flawless at everything they do, but having an engaging arc is the simplest bare minimum when writing your story’s protagonist. But that got lost in drawn out weather descriptions and, of course, the unhealthiest romances in fiction.

In a 2013 interview with TIME about her book, The Host, Meyer says she never thinks much about if her protagonists are good role models because “it’s fiction... I don’t think you should be using fictional characters as role models.” To that, I strongly disagree and am rather surprised to hear from Meyer given the great battles of Team Edward vs Team Jacob as each of the films released in theaters. Granted, this is an old interview, and I don’t know how much her opinion changed, but it still irks me.

Whether you like to admit it or not-- especially on the wonderful world of Tumblr.com--, fiction affects our reality. It alters our perception on politics, race, gender, lifestyles, and yes, even romance. Especially as kids and teenagers, we can’t help but find role models to base our ever-changing identities on and look up to so we can be better people for ourselves and society. It’s the reason why so many people define themselves on what Hogwarts house they’re in, why Disney milks Star Wars as long as they can, and why black communities arranged trips for everyone to see Black Panther. And unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to say Twilight is completely harmless in how it portrays the romances.

Just type in any search engine about abusive relationships in Twilight, and you get millions upon millions of analyses on how Edward and Jacob check off as abusers. They’re controlling, aggressive, easy to become jealous, and lacking any notion of personal boundaries. However, one abuser often forgotten in this conversation is Bella, who is such a despicable, emotional manipulator.

Remember how ridiculously depressed she gets in New Moon when Edward leaves? Well, she starts seeing visions of Edward checking in on her whenever she seems to be in danger. And she gets the bright idea to keep purposefully doing so-- including hanging out with shady gang members, crashing a motorcycle and jumping off a cliff-- just to get his attention and hopefully coax him to return to Forks. I’m surprised she didn’t just straight up say “If you leave me, I’ll kill myself” because it’s such textbook gaslighting. And when Edward is led to believe Bella died, then he attempts suicide! And she’s seriously surprised he would given how much needless self-harm she did over the months? What else did you think was going to happen?! I can’t even laugh at some of the badness of New Moon because Bella’s toxic behavior leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. Her severe romantic dependency went from being a damsel-in-distress to an abusive, emotionally manipulative screwball. And that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg, folks.

Upon actually watching all the films for the first time, Edward’s behavior isn’t nearly as bad as my first perceptions when I was in middle school, but his possessiveness and lack of personal space are still incredibly uncomfortable. I know we all wrote that fanfiction where person A gets saved by person B from attempted gang rape, but Edward is so overbearingly and exhaustively protective, and it just gets worse in the sequels up until Bella’s finally transformed into a vampire. It is to the point where he hardly trusts Bella to do anything by herself knowing how massive of a klutz she is, and will pop into her home without permission, warning or respect of her personal space. As such, she never grows independence, much less learn how to protect herself or be prepared when supernatural forces come for her while the Cullens leave.

Edward may have good intentions to think of Bella’s safety with the context of other vampires mercilessly killing humans in Washington state, but he’s also on a slippery slope of controlling nearly every aspect of her life, especially when she might start feeling romantic for someone else, because guess what dude? You left for over half a year. This continuing behavior throughout the series heavily contributes to Bella’s unhealthy dependency on a romantic partner to the point where she feels like she can’t live without them. Granted, that doesn’t excuse her emotional manipulation, but because she never learns self-defense on the off chance no one else is there to save her, it’s no wonder why she has severe issues with separation and loneliness. Like I said before, you can’t have a healthy romantic relationship if you think it’s going to automatically fix all your problems. Your romantic partner isn’t your therapist or coping mechanism, especially if you can’t handle a simple break up or if said partner wasn’t even that great to begin with.

You’d think Jacob would be off the hook since he at least doesn’t watch Bella while she’s sleeping, but he’s not escaping unscathed. Despite how the series tries to explain what imprinting is, it’s glanced over so quickly on the now creepy relationship between Jacob and Bella’s daughter, even all things considered for a rapidly growing vampire child. He also has a ton of aggressive tendencies as part of the werewolf gene to the point where he will inevitably hurt Bella-- as illustrated with another pack member’s live-in girlfriend who has scars across her face--, and has zero respect for consent as he forcibly kisses her on multiple occasions. Yeah, cause painting your Native American characters-- and only prominent characters of color-- as inevitable, aggressive predators sure is good representation and definitely not some awful racial stereotype. Jacob embodies the most basic descriptors of toxic masculinity between his sense of entitlement that Bella should choose him over Edward and the “boys will be boys” mentality as though Jacob is completely incapable of any self-control, werewolf or not. Given the recent news surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and his defenders claiming “what boy hasn’t done this” and that he shouldn’t be punished for his actions as a young man, Jacob’s character is one of the most dangerous aspects of the series to be romanticized as a wish fulfillment fantasy. He’s not only based on gross racial stereotypes, but also on harmful patriarchal ideas of men thinking they’re entitled to women without any consideration to their autonomy. Normalizing this behavior as attractive qualities in a partner allows men to run from their actions without consequence.

And this toxic masculinity only heightened when Fifty Shades of Grey entered the spotlight for pop culture to bash, but had much more legitimate criticisms to garner hatred.

Fifty Shades of Grey changes up the wish fulfillment fantasy where instead of a vampire, the clumsy and awkward female lead, Anastasia Steele, is swept away by billionaire, Christian Grey, who’s happy to spoil her with grand luxuries but has a troubled past which makes it difficult for him to love. Oh, and he’s into BDSM and writes up a questionable contract for Anastasia on all the kinky shit he wants to do. And Anastasia is so sweet and innocent she doesn’t even know what an anal plug is (like, it’s right there in the name, sweetheart. You can’t be this dumb). As you do, things go wrong, they take a break, Christian dumps his tragic anime backstory on Anastasia as a pathetic excuse to apologize, people from his past show up because reasons, and they eventually live happily ever after, married with a baby on the way.

Not only does Christian hit the same abuser red flags as Edward, Jacob and Bella on top of being the worst dom in history, but the series passes off that anyone can be fixed with the power of love. Once again, your romantic partner isn’t your therapist. Trauma may explain his behavior, but that doesn’t excuse what he put Anastasia through, and neither is it suddenly her job to fix him. And abusers like Christian are never reformed so easily with love; more often than not, they use it as leverage to manipulate and keep the relationship going for the sake of control. Sure, it sounds hot to be in a BDSM relationship with a billionaire ready to spoil you, but do the ends really justify the means of that sweet wish fulfillment? Is it really that great of a fantasy to play your partner’s therapist and humor their extreme control and possessiveness to the point where you’re almost not allowed to be an individual?

It’s one thing to have guilty pleasures and wish fulfillment fantasies. But after a while, you wonder what it is about a certain piece of media which makes it a guilty pleasure. It’s one thing if Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey are guilty pleasures in some of the enjoyably bad writing, unnatural dialogue or squandered potential. But upholding these romances as ideal and disregarding all the blatant warning signs of abusive relationships? That’s where we really need to take a step back and wonder why this is remotely okay to normalize, especially for impressionable teenage girls. Even though I was mostly amused by the films’ bad writing and these poor actors pushing through for their paychecks, there was also a fair amount of content which was too uncomfortable to laugh at-- Bella’s emotional manipulation, the portrayal of werewolves, and the unsubtle anti-abortion message in Breaking Dawn: Part 1 just to name a few. It’s baffling how these properties became cultural phenomenons for their “romances of the century” when most of these character really need couples’ counseling.

Thankfully, these franchises didn’t made too lasting impressions and for the most part are forgotten. Stephenie Meyer quietly retired to continue taking care of her kids, and EL James just kinda disappeared from the media spotlight since the last film released. Maybe Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey aren’t the worst series to happen to mainstream media, but they still heavily reflect a society which to this day hesitates to call dating violence what it is. Where finding love in another takes priority over self-care. Where people still struggle to define abuse because “if that’s abuse, then everyone I know has been abused.” Where despite sexual assault survivors’ testimonies, polygraph tests, supporters, and grueling mental exhaustion to tell their stories, their abusers roam free without consequence and are still allowed power with their nasty holier-than-thou attitudes to silence anyone who dares question their character.

We’re slowly getting better in these kind of fantasies for teens with films like Love, Simon and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before with genuinely health romances where the characters have to confront their flaws and grow. We’re a lot more critical of relationship dynamics in film than we were over a decade ago, especially with #MeToo in the last year. But part of me is still worried if we’ll have another trend like Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey where it’s blindly defended because it’s fiction and disregard when people romanticize the severely problematic elements which don’t guarantee happily-ever-afters for couples’ in reality. As the possibility of reverting to pre-Roe vs. Wade days becomes more of a likelihood, at what point do we finally acknowledge that a simple fantasy isn’t automatically above criticism?

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[clefaiiiry]

we know how you feel abt cyrus, but what's your take on the other pokebosses, like ghetsis or giovanni?? if you don't mind sharing

STRAP IN GUYS, GALS, AND NB PALS:

Giovanni:

honestly the strongest villain narrative-wise. The biggest issue I have with villains in Pokemon is that they don’t really tie into the player’s goals and therefore are not true counter-forces to the player. Giovanni, being a Gym Leader and therefore an obstacle to prevent you from finishing your main quest, is the most effective boss as a result.

But I haven’t finished playing Blue on the 3DS port and I barely watched the anime so my only real exposure to Giovanni directly is via Generations and his limited appearances in HGSS and USUM.

Although I love Silver and seeing him try so hard to distance himself from Team Rocket and his father’s legacy is really interesting and creates great drama aha.

Archie:

water dad is best dad. He really feels like a cool science teacher, honestly. He tries to convince you to back off but he knows you’re gonna come after him so just tries to have fun with it.He almost makes me think of McCree from Overwatch; super smart and could totally kick your ass but has mastered the art of pretending to be an idiot so people lower their guard around him.

As much as I love his design in ORAS, he really is over-designed to the point that it’s kinda distracting. I want to stress that I love his character and I personally really like the design but it’s still kinda… yeah…

And honestly his goals are so ridiculous??? “Humans are assholes so I’m gonna fuck over every other Pokemon species that can’t survive in water.” Archie, honey, I know you’re trying, but please think this through a little more.

Maxie:

i aim for maxie’s level of extra. Seriously, he decorates his base with GLOWING DEADLY LAVA TUBES just for aesthetic. He needs to scare off a kid who’s messing with his plans? “I’ll bury you with my bare hands, don’t test me, you little shit.” Also his voice in Generations is really gooooooooooooood………

And his design is really good??? In ORAS at least. Like, his TURTLENECK LEGGINGS + SHORTS COMBO are fucking stupid, but overall it’s pretty decent. In RSE he looks like he’s about fifty and struggling to get through his eighth mid-life crisis.

HIS PLAN IS EQUALLY SILLY. “I’ll make Groudon increase the power of the sun so that the oceans dry up!” That’s… That’s not even slightly how it works, Maxie, for God’s sake, you’re a scientist, you should know this.

not gonna talk about cyrus because i ramble about him enough already lmao

Ghetsis:

FUCK THIS GUY HOLY SHIT I HATE HIM SO MUCH HE’S SUCH A GOOD BADDIE BUT HOLY GOD I HATE HIM. His Hydreigon (which is hacked btw because Hydreigon don’t evolve until level 64) has a full-powered Frustration and is probably the reason he’s missing an arm… or at least it’s so fucked-up that he keeps it under that carpet he calls a cape.

BUT GOD HE’S SUCH A PIECE OF SHIT. The way he talks to N makes me so angry. I legit had to stop playing to calm down when I played through the first time. He reminded me way too much of personal issues that I won’t delve into here but yikes.

He’s also kinda over-designed but that’s more just me trying to find issues with him so I can hate him more lmao. As if the list of reasons wasn’t long enough.

Lysandre:

talk about wasted potential. I have no idea if he’s utilized better in the anime but in the games he’s probably the weakest boss we’ve had so far? He complains about why humanity is making the world ugly but we’re never shown what happened to him to make him think that way??? He’s just some rich asshole who’s mad that things aren’t the way he wants them to be??? You wanna join his squad of people who wanna make the world pretty? Sure! Just pay £1 million or whatever it was…

And he has history with Professor Sycamore??? Why couldn’t we explore that? That would’ve been way more interesting than the 72 extra side characters we had in Kalos who didn’t really do anything??? Why do we have so many side characters when we have barely developed our main antagonist???

I will say this much though, his suit is fucking great, 10/10, who is your tailor? can I hire them? damn son…

Guzma:

IT’S YA BOI. I love him??? So much??? He really cares about his team but showing a soft-side kinda ruins the image he works so hard to maintain so he’s gonna be a grump about it. He’s trying so hard to look cool and tough and gain approval from others that he makes self-destructive decisions and ends up being manipulated into helping with some super shady multi-dimensional bullshit. Honestly same. But seriously, it makes me sad that he wasn’t expanded on as much as he could’ve been in USUM.

HIS DESIGN IS SO GOOD. It really represents him as a character perfectly. Also, any fanart that has him standing up straight to be taller than the other bosses is great, 10/10, I laugh every time.

I just want him to be my best friend, okay? Me, him, and Cyrus can go beat up shitty adults together. Dream Team.

Lusamine:

UUUUUUUUUUUUURGH. I have so many problems with how her character is handled in USUM. Look, obviously I’m not against redemption arcs, y’all know me too well by now, but I’m certainly against bad redemption arcs. Lusamine’s isn’t even an arc! She’s just… suddenly not evil and forgiven for all her shitty actions??? Lillie and Gladion both just forgive her for years of abuse because “it’s okay guys! she was being brainwashed the whole time!” It feels really shitty.

I would’ve been less angry about it if she hadn’t been instantly forgiven by her children and accepted that she may never be able to make it up to them, but she would still work to fix all she had broken and better the world. But nope! She just gets a free pass! With all due respect Game Freak, fuck off.

I like her hair though, I’ll give her that much, her stylist deserves a raise.

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Epicurus

The existential relationship between the despaired and faith/religion always beguiles me. Like, I don’t think people who are rich or hold station in this society sincerely believe in god. How can they? In this world, with their means, THEY are god. I’m not talking about those cats who make it to that point after starting from nothing. Those people credit god with their success rather than their hard work and perseverance. They fell into the trap of faith at the beginning and have been a prisoner of it ever since. Think about it, way back in antiquity, particularly among black people, god has always been a thing. Faith I always a thing. It’s taught early and is kind of an expectation. I can only speak about my experience because i, Myself, am black and come from a ridiculously religious family. We have our own church, man. My cousin is going to seminary school to “learn” how to be a preacher. A you can imagine, I’m not the most popular person at the reunions. My lack of faith and overt disdain for religion chafes the very core of what my family holds dear. I don’t understand them and they don’t understand me.

I’ve studied religion. All forms of it. As far as I can tell, it’s all propaganda. Since the Council of Mycnae, it’s all been a shell game. The canonization of this and the dismissal of that; it just smacks of control. It just smacks of manipulation. It just smacks of success. And it has been for millennia. Cats go to war over this nonsense. They die for it. More importantly, they discriminate, condemn, and kill for it. I think, before, when there were just little cults of sects (and, yes, Christianity started out as a cult. Look it up) that maybe religion was truly for the people. Maybe the philosophy actually helped improve the standard of life. But as modern religion exists now, I do not understand how anyone with sense can see this stuff as anything other than toxic. Take for example my sister, She is a wonderful cook. Legitimately gifted in the kitchen. She’s won competitions and cooked for some pretty well known people. She has all of this buzz and goodwill but does nothing with it. She lives in the ghetto, on welfare, never moving forward or trying to do more than the bare minimum. Chick is a wild disappointment to me. The thing is, she believes, like, ardently, that god has a plan for her. That she is meant for great things and, in time, those things will be given you her in one form or another. So, even though her life is sh*t through her own doing, she actively believes god will deliver her from this clusterf*ck of mediocrity she’s created for herself, through no work of her own. That logic is obtuse to legitimate success and I don’t get why she can’t see that. Her faith is sabotaging her well being and the standard of life she provides for my nieces.

I, myself, am a relatively decent artists. I exude creativity. My imagination is so vivid and vibrant, I can see, in detail, the worlds that I create with a pencil like I could physically interact with them. Transcribing them to paper so others can experience a fraction of what I see is a passion of mine. I enjoy art. I enjoy writing. I enjoy drawing. I’ve been a creator for a very long time, sine an early age. I played with toys, crafted a narrative, and executed that vision to perfection. In grade school, I would larp out in the fields with some close friends, always expanding upon the narrative we created together. As an adult, I transcribe the inspiration I derive from the world around me with ink, paint, graphite, and imagination. My family believes my abilities are a gift from god. They’re not. They’re a defense mechanism developed by an abused kid too afraid to interact with people so he created vivid fantasies to disappear into. In those fantasies, he didn’t have to be afraid of the beatings. In those worlds, he wasn’t persecuted by the people who were supposed to love and protect him. i create because I could control that narrative. My real life narrative was, is, one of trauma, anger, and futility. In that regard, I get why people grasp onto fairy tales and mythology to get through. When you have no hope, you create it. I imagine that’s why slavers took to christianity so fervently way back when. It explains why, to this day, black people allow such a domineering position for Christ in their lives. The hope that Jesus Christ would deliver them from bondage is a powerful one, indeed. I imagine it got a lot of those embattled individuals through another day in the fields. Eventually, those cats were freed. Freed to walk into a world that hated and feared the, A world where the intrinsic structure of the state is set up to persecute, mitigate, and dehumanize them. This is the world that god promised you? Bro, you got duped. God didn’t deliver anyone to those rosy fields. Not them, not you, and certainly not me. It’s just another control used to box us in and keep us docile. If we’re all looking into the heavens, those who are less pious left down here on earth are having their way with the world with no sense of piety or moral direction.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” I always fall back on this argument. The logic is sound and it doesn’t even argue against religion or god for that matter. It’s just an observation made; one that kind of puts all of this blind faith and promises of a better life after you die, into perspective. Why does god allow evil to occur? If he can’t stop it, how is he any different from you or me? If it’s so benevolent, why is there suffering in this world to begin with? If he can’t help to alleviate this toil, why revere it? If it’s doing it on purpose, then it is a hindrance that should be removed. I don’t think got exists but if it did, it’s a kid with an ant farm. It’s wound us up and let us go, completely removing itself from our plight just to watch our struggle, just to see what we can do. But we can’t do more than itself, I don’t think. A person can be enlightened. They can show others how to get to that point. People, however, as a collective, are not. We are the worst. Andi think it’s People, not a person, that the term “We are created in its image.” Refers to, the ramifications of which are very damning. Look at us. We’re terrible. People are the worst. They have been since day one. No amount of religion, doctrine, faith, or rhetoric has changed that. Not one bit. To put a modern spin on it changes nothing about human nature. In that reflection, the whole “In my image” thing, you’ve learned everything you need to know about god and it’s teachings. They’re flawed. They’re selfish. They’re cruel. There’s an agenda. These teachings as they were, shouldn’t even be acknowledged.  If you can look at society and  that’s not enough to tell you not to put so much faith into religion, I don’t know what is.

[smokeybrand]

Epicurus

The existential relationship between the despaired and faith/religion always beguiles me. Like, I don’t think people who are rich or hold station in this society sincerely believe in god. How can they? In this world, with their means, THEY are god. I’m not talking about those cats who make it to that point after starting from nothing. Those people credit god with their success rather than their hard work and perseverance. They fell into the trap of faith at the beginning and have been a prisoner of it ever since. Think about it, way back in antiquity, particularly among black people, god has always been a thing. Faith I always a thing. It’s taught early and is kind of an expectation. I can only speak about my experience because i, Myself, am black and come from a ridiculously religious family. We have our own church, man. My cousin is going to seminary school to “learn” how to be a preacher. A you can imagine, I’m not the most popular person at the reunions. My lack of faith and overt disdain for religion chafes the very core of what my family holds dear. I don’t understand them and they don’t understand me.

I’ve studied religion. All forms of it. As far as I can tell, it’s all propaganda. Since the Council of Mycnae, it’s all been a shell game. The canonization of this and the dismissal of that; it just smacks of control. It just smacks of manipulation. It just smacks of success. And it has been for millennia. Cats go to war over this nonsense. They die for it. More importantly, they discriminate, condemn, and kill for it. I think, before, when there were just little cults of sects (and, yes, Christianity started out as a cult. Look it up) that maybe religion was truly for the people. Maybe the philosophy actually helped improve the standard of life. But as modern religion exists now, I do not understand how anyone with sense can see this stuff as anything other than toxic. Take for example my sister, She is a wonderful cook. Legitimately gifted in the kitchen. She’s won competitions and cooked for some pretty well known people. She has all of this buzz and goodwill but does nothing with it. She lives in the ghetto, on welfare, never moving forward or trying to do more than the bare minimum. Chick is a wild disappointment to me. The thing is, she believes, like, ardently, that god has a plan for her. That she is meant for great things and, in time, those things will be given you her in one form or another. So, even though her life is sh*t through her own doing, she actively believes god will deliver her from this clusterf*ck of mediocrity she’s created for herself, through no work of her own. That logic is obtuse to legitimate success and I don’t get why she can’t see that. Her faith is sabotaging her well being and the standard of life she provides for my nieces.

I, myself, am a relatively decent artists. I exude creativity. My imagination is so vivid and vibrant, I can see, in detail, the worlds that I create with a pencil like I could physically interact with them. Transcribing them to paper so others can experience a fraction of what I see is a passion of mine. I enjoy art. I enjoy writing. I enjoy drawing. I’ve been a creator for a very long time, sine an early age. I played with toys, crafted a narrative, and executed that vision to perfection. In grade school, I would larp out in the fields with some close friends, always expanding upon the narrative we created together. As an adult, I transcribe the inspiration I derive from the world around me with ink, paint, graphite, and imagination. My family believes my abilities are a gift from god. They’re not. They’re a defense mechanism developed by an abused kid too afraid to interact with people so he created vivid fantasies to disappear into. In those fantasies, he didn’t have to be afraid of the beatings. In those worlds, he wasn’t persecuted by the people who were supposed to love and protect him. i create because I could control that narrative. My real life narrative was, is, one of trauma, anger, and futility. In that regard, I get why people grasp onto fairy tales and mythology to get through. When you have no hope, you create it. I imagine that’s why slavers took to christianity so fervently way back when. It explains why, to this day, black people allow such a domineering position for Christ in their lives. The hope that Jesus Christ would deliver them from bondage is a powerful one, indeed. I imagine it got a lot of those embattled individuals through another day in the fields. Eventually, those cats were freed. Freed to walk into a world that hated and feared the, A world where the intrinsic structure of the state is set up to persecute, mitigate, and dehumanize them. This is the world that god promised you? Bro, you got duped. God didn’t deliver anyone to those rosy fields. Not them, not you, and certainly not me. It’s just another control used to box us in and keep us docile. If we’re all looking into the heavens, those who are less pious left down here on earth are having their way with the world with no sense of piety or moral direction.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” I always fall back on this argument. The logic is sound and it doesn’t even argue against religion or god for that matter. It’s just an observation made; one that kind of puts all of this blind faith and promises of a better life after you die, into perspective. Why does god allow evil to occur? If he can’t stop it, how is he any different from you or me? If it’s so benevolent, why is there suffering in this world to begin with? If he can’t help to alleviate this toil, why revere it? If it’s doing it on purpose, then it is a hindrance that should be removed. I don’t think got exists but if it did, it’s a kid with an ant farm. It’s wound us up and let us go, completely removing itself from our plight just to watch our struggle, just to see what we can do. But we can’t do more than itself, I don’t think. A person can be enlightened. They can show others how to get to that point. People, however, as a collective, are not. We are the worst. Andi think it’s People, not a person, that the term “We are created in its image.” Refers to, the ramifications of which are very damning. Look at us. We’re terrible. People are the worst. They have been since day one. No amount of religion, doctrine, faith, or rhetoric has changed that. Not one bit. To put a modern spin on it changes nothing about human nature. In that reflection, the whole “In my image” thing, you’ve learned everything you need to know about god and it’s teachings. They’re flawed. They’re selfish. They’re cruel. There’s an agenda. These teachings as they were, shouldn’t even be acknowledged.  If you can look at society and  that’s not enough to tell you not to put so much faith into religion, I don’t know what is.