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chibimyumi · 4 years

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Hi!! I've been reading your blog for ours and my eyes are burning but I'm so satisfied!! I recently re read the manga after like 4 years I think? I already knew about the twins ofc but reading it again knowing that is so refreshing and is so obvious now!! Anyway I wanted to ask if I'm not being annoying; at the end of chapter 128 the interaction between o!ciel and Sebastián is not clear to me. Could it be the translation? Why does ciel asks "you wouldn't lie to me, would you?" And Sebastian replies, kinda looking sad, "regrettably I do not tell lies". Do you understand that interaction better? Sorry if I'm missing something obvious here

【Related post: Contract term 1 and Sebas cannot lie, at all!】

Dear Anon,

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words, they are very appreciated ^^ I do send my condolences for your lost hours and visual comfort though. Please take a 20 second break closing your eyes for every 20 minutes you read intensively (*´▽｀*)ノ💊 It is very important in this screen age. I’ve been doing that for the past 2 weeks, and it’s done wonders for me (*~∇~*)

Now without much further ado, your question. Judging from your transcription of the English version I would say it is not badly translated. It just misses a TINY bit of nuance. Just to be sure, let us first look at the original Japanese dialogue and a clinical translation.

お前は…僕に嘘は吐いていないな？

Omae wa... boku ni uso wa tsuiteinai na?

You [of all people]... have not done such thing as lying to me, right?

ええ、残念ながら、私は嘘は吐きません

Ee, zannnen nagara, watashi wa uso wa tsukimasen

Indeed, unfortunately, I [of all people] do no such thing as lying.

1. Explanation Ciel’s text

【Omae wa... boku ni uso wa tsuiteinai na?】

As I have frequently mentioned, Japanese is a null-subject language, which means that a subject is not necessary to formulate a full sentence. When the speaker does add a subject however, it means they are laying extra emphasis on the subject.

In this case, O!Ciel used ‘omae wa’ (you), which is the subject of the sentence. In a null-subject language this part is unnecessary, but as O!Ciel has added it, emphasis is drawn to this subject. So instead of a simple “you have not”, it effectively means “you of all people, you specifically, YOU, have not.”

【Omae wa... boku ni uso wa tsuiteinai na?】

Then O!Ciel says “uso wa” (lying) using the particle ‘wa’ instead of the usual ‘wo’. “Wa” is an emphasising particle, meaning that whatever precedes this particle is basically highlighted in neon, written in bold and italic. So rather than just: “you have not lied”, it is “you have done no such thing as lying”.

【Omae wa... boku ni uso wa tsuiteinai na?】

This last part is the only thing I would say is ““wrongly”” translated in the version you read. Instead of "you wouldn't lie", it should be “you have not lied.” This phrase is in is present perfect, meaning that O!Ciel asks his butler whether he “has lied at all in the past”. Not “you just don’t lie in general, right?” Because this question refers to actions in the past, we can assume this question is meant to refer to any information about what O!Ciel suspected might be relevant to what he is thinking; that his brother is back. More on this below in part 3.

So in short, in O!Ciel’s text, he highlights Sebastian (omae wa) and the lying (uso wa). The meaning of the message here is therefore:

“Other people might have lied, but YOU have not, right? You might have done many things, but LYING you did not, right?”

2. Explanation Sebas’ text

【Ee, zannnen nagara, watashi wa uso wa tsukimasen】

In the version you gave me Sebas says “regrettably”, but I would say that while the translation is not wrong at all, it might be a BIT too strong?

I myself propose “unfortunately”. In Japanese too just like English, ‘unfortunately’ is just a formal prelude to an announcement that the recipient might not like hearing. Like: “unfortunately the X brand toothpaste is out of stock, but we do have Y brand.” But, I am no native-level speaker of English, so I don’t understand all the nuances precisely. Perhaps ‘regrettably’ and ‘unfortunately’ are equally strong. Do tell me if anyone knows whether one is stronger than the other. But either way, in Japanese it is not very strong. It’s just Sebas mentally preparing his master to hear negative news.

【Ee, zannnen nagara, watashi wa uso wa tsukimasen】

Then comes the “watashi wa uso wa tsukimasen”. Like in O!Ciel’s text, here Sebas does use a subject too, namely ‘watashi wa’. As use of subject means emphasis, so it’s not just “I don’t lie”, but “others might, but I, of all people, don’t lie”.

【Ee, zannnen nagara, watashi wa uso wa tsukimasen】

Then there is the particle ‘wa’ again in the second half of the sentence, “uso wa tsukimasen.” Just like in O!Ciel’s text, the standard particle should have been ‘wo’, but as Sebas repeats his master’s ‘wa’, he also lays emphasis on the action that he would not do: “such thing as lying.”

In short, the full message of Sebas’ text would essentially be:

“Indeed, unfortunately (for you/me/us), I of all people, unlike others, absolutely do no such thing as lying.”

3. ‘What’ was not lied about?

Now we’ve broken down all the linguistic nuances and details of the spoken text, let us do some interpreting.

Though there is no confirmation, I think we can assume O!Ciel was referring to the conversation about his brother being eaten: “you told me that the price paid - my brother’s soul - can never return.” Though this was said BEFORE they sealed the first contract term, after signing all terms, Sebas confirmed again that eating Ciel’s soul was indeed taken as ferry fee.

Later again, O!Ciel asks the demon what happens to a soul after being devoured, and the contract-bound Sebas confirms in clear language: “it simply disappears”. This phrasing by Sebas is not open to interpretation.

O!Ciel first saw “who stole the candy from my tummy?” and started to suspect things. Obviously he KNEW his brother was dead, so rationally he pushed that possibility away from his head. But then later he saw Soma who was attacked and holding a piece of the photo of the twins. Seeing that photo gives an explicit connection to his dead brother, and then there’d only be so much O!Ciel could rationally do to wave away the thoughts about his brother. The possibility was screaming at him, after all.

The only source of information he could trust at that point was Sebas. By the time Sebas gave his master the unambiguous answer about his brother’s soul he could already no longer lie. HENCE, Real Ciel is definitely dead.

Then we need to explain the horror struck reaction of O!Ciel upon hearing his butler’s confirmation.

Normally you’d think that hearing somebody is dead would reassure you that somebody cannot come pester you. But to O!Ciel, that R!Ciel is confirmed to be ‘dead’ doesn’t mean he can’t be back; on the contrary. Both O!Ciel and Sebas know painfully well that the scythe-wielding-lunatic who can create zombies is still at large. Zombies can only be made if somebody is dead. Hence, having confirmation that R!Ciel is definitely “potential zombie material” is terrible news. Plus, every time the zombies appear, they are significantly more competent than the previous models.

I think O!Ciel has always had Undertaker’s zombie-creating ambitions in the back of his mind, but it wasn’t until now that the puzzle pieces fell into place. Yeah... that IS indeed awful news.

From Sebastian’s sorrowful expression we can say he is upset for his master’s sake, but I think he is mostly very sad for himself. The first time he tried to fight said scythe-wielding-lunatic he almost died, and the second time his arse was only spared because Undertaker didn’t bother engaging. “Unfortunately” indeed!

Well, that was it (*´▽｀*)ノ Though I am not 100% sure whether I read all of this correct, I at least hope this was some good food for thought. Cheers!

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#Analysis #Undertaker #Sebastian Michaelis #Lies #O!Ciel #2CT #R!Ciel #bizarre doll #japanese language

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anntoldst0ries · 4 years

Text

Diagnosis

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who read my previous fic and left such kind comments. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate this!

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Vicky Valentine)

Word Count: 2,911

Summary: Dr Ramsey attempts to diagnose the most difficult case in his career...his own.

Warnings: None! A lot of introspection again and hints of angst :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan Ramsey considered himself a brave man.

He always had the courage to say whatever he wanted to say or what had to be said - be that a terminal diagnosis, savaging someone’s speech at a medical conference (only if the speaker was talking nonsense, that is), scolding an intern - you name it.

With years of experience under his belt, Dr Ramsey excelled at the “art” of saying the most horrible, unpleasant and inconvenient things. It was a process he took to pieces and mastered every tiniest part.

He knew exactly what they were whispering behind his back in the hospital corridors. Dr Ramsey is a bully. A ruthless cynic. No one survived more than 3 minutes of his tirades without bursting into tears. Or, as some of the interns so lovingly put it, he was “the only survivor of a heart transplant”. The last remark had been conveyed to him by Baz, who found it hilarious…and so did Naveen. It took one deadly look to silence Baz forever, however Naveen used every occasion to remind his protégé of hospital’s favourite joke:

‘How’s your heart, Ethan?’

‘Good, why are you as—‘ Ethan didn’t have a chance to finish answering the question, interrupted by Dr Banerji who was in convulsions.

‘God, Naveen, for such a bright mind and one of the best doctors in the world, I still find it hard to believe that you have a sense of humour of a 5 year old’

‘There is nothing wrong with some joy, Ethan. You should try it sometimes, it may do you good.’

Similar conversations took place on a regular basis, but they always ended with Ethan rolling his eyes and Naveen sighing. Younger doctor would never, ever tell his mentor off, he respected him too much. So Ethan let Dr Banerji have some fun at his expense from time to time.

But, truth be told, he kept his emotions at a leash and he was good at it, because there wasn’t a thing in Ethan’s life that he wasn’t good at. Regardless of what it was - saving people’s lives or emotional self-deprivation.

That’s why reminiscing past 2 years was so hard for accomplished diagnostician. He couldn’t help but think that he’s lived more during this time than he’s lived during his whole life. His existence wasn’t a boring one, he loved his job and the cases that the team had to crack were mostly complex and thus exciting. There was also a sense of fulfilment and servitude to a greater cause.

As a kid, Ethan wanted to be a detective. It all started with Alan buying his son one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. There was no hidden intention in this choice - Alan simply ran out of book ideas, Ethan was literally gobbling up the books at his disposal and was thirsty for more. Therefore, Mr Ramsey picked picked one of the thickest positions available in the book shop, with hopes it will keep Ethan occupied for at least a couple of weeks. Oh, how wrong he was - 5 days later his son was already begging for more.

Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot quickly took the top spot on the list of Ethan’s childhood heroes. He was obsessed with their investigative methods, their sharp minds that captured even the tiniest of details and how missing those nuances would make solving a mystery a lot harder, if not impossible.

That’s why he became obsessed with details. He analysed, compared, observed and noted down everything around him with deliberation. After a while, Ethan realised that these skills come handy in various areas of life. He could read people and to a degree foresee what their next move was going to be. If he wanted to, he could probably try and influence their decisions too. If it wasn’t for Alan’s upbringing, this particular skill might have taken his life onto a dark track, but fortunately he utilised it for greater good.

Having this sort of insight made him very self-conscious and he never turned away from reliving his own decisions and behaviours, which helped him become a better doctor, every single day. But he never wallowed in the mud of emotions, instead always operating on facts.

But for the past couple of months, this process became a pure torture.

You know what they say, the devil is in the detail. And the devil it was indeed.

The devil that would be the death of Ethan was 5’4, had raven hair, plumped lips, mesmerising eyes and a captivating laugh.

Suddenly, he heard the devil’s voice in his head.

‘Are you pinching the bridge of your nose right now?’

He was.

‘God dammit!’ - shouted Ethan, so loud that he startled poor Jenner, who resigned from occupying the sofa and ran straight to his bed. Even the retriever, in his doggy wisdom, knew that when his master was upset, it was best to stay out of his sight and wait for the storm to pass.

Whenever Dr Ramsey had a serious dilemma, he would subtly join his thumb and index finger to pinch the gentle skin between eyes. She knew of this somewhat subconscious habit and teased him about it countless times.

With most people, the whole observing and reading process was a one-sided game. For majority of mortals, Ethan was a closed book and they had no idea how to open, let alone read it. But not Rookie. She saw right through him. Ethan considered himself a riveting mystery thriller before, if we’re talking comparisons, but right now he was probably a cheap Harlequin. How did he sink so low in practically no time?

The answer came before he was even able to finish the question.

He was hopelessly, utterly and irreversibly in love with Dr Vicky Valentine.

“Victoria….” he whispered. He knew her full name, he’s read her bloody application and her employee file many, many times. More than he’d ever care to admit. Neither him nor anyone else addressed her by her full name. She always introduced herself as Vicky and even mentioned to him, June & Baz one time that she considered herself too young to be a bearer of such gracious name. But when the name fell out of his lips, it made perfect sense. Victoria. Victory. After a long, tough and heartbreaking battle, she’s won all of him. And man, wasn’t she fighting fiercely.

She was so much like him, and yet so different. Patients loved her, and for a good reason - not only was she amazing at her job, but also so genuinely caring about every patient she met. Somehow, she was able to see past people weary of their conditions, instead she always noticed the human beings with their unique stories. Thanks to her, patients never felt like sickness became their identity, but merely a stage in their life that shall soon pass.

Hospital staff adored her as well, she had time and a huge smile for everyone; her bright aura lit up every room she walked into and was a pleasure to be around.

Those who knew Ethan a bit better or worked with him were aware of the insanely high standards he was holding himself to. And it would have been fine if they only applied to him, but he held everyone else to the same standard too. It was his buffer. Most gave up without even trying, it was humanly impossible to live up to such expectations. And that was the goal. Dr Ramsey wanted no distractions and if anyone wanted so much as approach him, they had a giant wall to jump over first.

But the young intern wasn’t bothered in the slightest. Dozens of people before her stood in front of the wall and tried to figure out how to get in. And she… she just found a tiny gap and squeezed right through. Before Ethan realised what’s going on, it was already too late. And she wasn’t even fully aware of what she’s done.

Like air, she’s entered his life imperceptibly, filling every space until there was nothing else. She was in every reflection he saw, every smile, every freaking thing a reminder of her, one way or another.

He was completely under her spell, enchanted, drunk in the thought of her.

The most ironic part was that if he went by his unreasonable standards, she’d never stand a chance.

She was messy, she was a klutz, she laughed too loud and rounded her eyes like a child when something seriously excited her.

And yet, something about her made him break all of his rules, lower his guard and re-think everything he’s ever thought he knew and believed in.

Obviously, he wouldn’t be himself if the occupational quirk did not kick in at some point. Whatever the cause, Dr Ramsey had to get to the bottom of it, no matter how many tests did he have to run on his mind and heart. He needed the diagnosis so he could start the treatment. But his sharp diagnostic skills which made him a famous man, suddenly decided to go on unplanned vacation and it looks like they were not coming back anytime soon.

Ambivalence became Ethan’s newest companion. Some days, he thought he was going to blow his brains out, the others he was strangely content and did not want to analyse anything, things were good just as they were.

For the first time in his life, he felt truly lost. He felt like Jon Snow, he knew nothing. It wasn’t a result of one event, rather a chain reaction. Starting with Naveen getting sick, the inability to figure out what was wrong with his mentor made Ethan seriously doubt his capabilities as a doctor. Then, Louise Ramsey made a surprise reappearance after having walked out on him and his dad 25 years earlier. When he was little, his dad use to say that wherever Louise goes, trouble follows and it wasn’t any different this time. She brought company - insecurity, sorrow, resentment - to name just a few. Ethan felt like someone ripped a band aid from his heart and painfully reminded him that all the wounds are still alive and never really healed.

And finally, Edenbrook. The place that others saw as walls, glass, beds, people in white coats, sickness, illness, death. To him, it was much, much more. The hospital had almost a transcendental dimension. It was here that Ethan’s transition had been completed. He shed his old skin and became Dr Ramsey, the person he was always meant to be.

That’s why Edenbrook closing hit him so hard - a part of him was about to die and be buried beneath years of sweat, tears and effort. It was probably the hardest thing to come to terms with in the 37 years that he’s been walking on the surface of the Earth.

And throughout all these events, she was with him.

She never gave up on Naveen and Ethan knew that there was more to it than just saving Edenbrook’s most prominent doctor. He believed, he wanted to believe that she did this for him too.

The memory brought shame that drained off him like unpleasant wave of cold water. Ethan never really forgave himself for just laying in his bed like a drunk bag of potatoes, whilst she was busting her gut to solve the case, even though she had ethics hearing to prepare for. A hearing that could make or break her whole career, before she even had a chance to start.

Dr Ramsey would like to think they were alike. But as a matter of fact, she was a much better person than him.

Then, with his mother in the picture, she never told him what to do. Even though he asked, many times. He hoped someone can actually make the decision for him, because it hurt so much to even think about this, let alone decide what to do next. But she never did. She was just there and by simply being, she empowered him to make his own, informed decision.

She was there, like no one else was in his entire life. Not to take anything from Naveen, who had tremendous effect on Ethan’s life - but this was completely different.

She penetrated his soul.

She made him feel.

Love.

It was the first time he used this word in a long, long time.

And maybe, quite possibly, for the first time in his life he used it with intention.

He thought he felt it once before.

When he was a student at Johns Hopkins, Ethan met Camille. She was a year older than him, with angelic voice and looks, the cascade of blond locks surrounding her gentle facial features like a halo.

What impressed him was that she kept hitting up on him, not the other way round. He’s had his mind set on graduating as a top student in his class and then getting the best residency there was - in Edenbrook hospital in Boston. It was either him or someone else. University romances were of no interest to him, or so he thought. After all, he’s just gone past his teenage years and was relatively new to the world of intimate human desires. As much as he tried to push them away, he had needs and his hormones were still a giant part of his decision-making process, doesn’t matter how hard he tried denying it.

Also, there was something motherly about her and she reminded him of the woman who left him when he was just a boy. It was completely fucked-up, he hated his mother and yet a memory of her and how he’d once do anything for her was tattooed in the insides of his brain.

Ethan and Camille shared a passion for medicine, music and opera. A few times, he was close to bringing her down to Providence, to introduce her to Alan, his father. But there was this weird voice in his head stopping him.

Maybe that’s why he wasn’t overly surprised when one day he walked on Camille. In his bed. Screaming and making other explicit sounds…except, he wasn’t the igniter. It was none other than his best friend at the time, Tobias. Ethan would never forget the jealous glance he shot him with when he first brought Camille to one of the student parties. And then things got worse. Ethan and Tobias always competed and for a long time it was a fuel that kept them both going. But when someone wins, someone has to lose. Neither of them was good at losing or accepting the failure.

Ethan was doing better than his best friend. Not significantly better, the difference between them had usually been slight, but it was there. Tobias couldn’t swallow this. Not only was Ethan doing better than him, he also had one of the most beautiful students at Hopkins by his side. Jealousy started to spread inside him like a wildfire and since his attempts to beat Ethan at school were futile, he decided to make use of his other skills. Tobias was a born flirter and charmer. He often used to say that no woman can resist his spell and that “where there’s a woman - there’s a way.”

Dr Ramsey never told anyone, but having found out that his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend was sort of relief. Call it sixth sense, an intuition… subconsciously he sort of felt that she wasn’t a girl for him. As for Tobias, he was tired of the fight….of Tobias fighting with him, that is. Ethan wasn’t fighting, he was just a better student and was going to be a better doctor. He was tired of petty competition and how the toxin poisoned their relationship.

So they actually made him a favour and helped him killed 2 birds with 1 stone - he was saved from having an awkward break-up conversation that he’s never went through before and he now had every right to hate Tobias. He didn’t really, as such feelings were a waste of energy, but a week later Tobias moved out of their shared apartment and they never really spoke again.

After Camille, he was only in a brief relationship once. With Harper. He deeply admired and respected her, but when things started getting too serious (from her side), he distanced himself. And so, for a couple of years to follow, they were on the off and on again terms. They went through countless friends with benefits stages, but he genuinely enjoyed her company. They just never wanted the same things, which became more and more evident as she was getting older. And he respected her too much to mess her around.

Ethan’s career was everything to him and he accepted the fact that falling in love and having a family is just not in the cards for him.

Or so he thought.

Dr Valentine entered his life one September morning and hasn’t left ever since. And, hell, hasn’t he tried to erase her. To make her hate him. To draw a line between work and personal life. He could honestly say that he tried everything.

For the love of God, he ran to fucking Amazon! He tried to hide from all things Dr Valentine, like a fool who forgot one of the most basic rules of life: there is no running away from yourself.

Tag list (please let me know if you wish to be removed): @terrm9 @openheart12 @openheartthot @rookie-ramsey @alwaysmychoices @brooks-eden @drethanramslay @starrystarrytrouble @justanotherrookie @caseyvalentineramsey@incorrectopenheart @heauxplesslydevoted @perriewinklenerdie @mercury84choices @archxxronrookie @renasalek-blog @maurine07 @whippedforethanfreakingramsey @lemonmiddleton @tsrookie @choicesfan10 @dr-colossal-pita @queencarb @gryffindordaughterofathena @qrkowna @aarisa-frost @choicesficwriterscreations

#open heart #dr ethan ramsey #dr ethan jonah ramsey #dr ramsey x mc #ethan ramsey #open heart choices #dr valentine #play choices #open heart fanfiction #open heart fic #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week

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freddieofhearts · 4 years

Text

Bye bye, dears (for now!)

I know there have been a lot of rumours and some posts about me leaving, so here I am to set the record straight and say a quick ‘au revoir’. This post is long, and I don’t expect everyone to read the whole thing—if you just want information on how to keep in touch, or about access to my removed fics, scroll to the bottom. ⬇️

Why are you leaving?

Firstly, of course I’m not leaving Freddie. This is just an ongoing hiatus from the social side of fandom, because while I have some incredible friends here, who have done all they can to support me and have made this experience wonderful in lots of ways—it’s also true that the social space has become more and more toxic for me.

I get a wild amount of hate. Despite never having my ask box enabled on here, people create new accounts just to message me and tell me all the problems in this fandom are my fault, that I’m faking being sick, that I should kill myself, that I’m fat, etc. I also very regularly get hateful comments on AO3.

Obviously I realise that I’m not the only one who receives these cruel attacks, but it’s become increasingly hard to handle them—especially as some people (‘real’ accounts, not faceless anons) do continue to blame me for wider problems in the fandom. It makes me feel consistently sad, anxious, and paranoid, so that I can’t focus on anything Queen-related that I enjoy.

More pressingly, it’s affected my mental health, which is—imperfect at the best of times. As I’ve occasionally alluded to in older posts on this blog, I have a history of anorexia, OCD, PTSD, and some other overlapping issues. Most people who know me in the fandom are also aware that I’m ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ to Covid-19, significantly immunocompromised, and have been isolating at home for eleven months.

The combination of all of these things + the constant toxic messages has really been triggering me, and leading to an uptick in disordered behaviours, which my body cannot sustain. Every new instance of hate from an anon—every time there’s another indication of groups in the fandom wanting to ostracise me further—my reaction is deeply self-punitive and unhealthy. Ultimately I need to be out of this environment for, at least, a protracted period. My therapist, my partner and my close friends in the fandom support this decision.

So, what went wrong?

In 2019, I expected to be an absolutely tiny blog in the Queen Tumblr landscape. The fandom was already well-established, and I have never worked to ‘build a following’ on here—I think I’ve linked my own fic a maximum of three or four times!—in fact, more or less the opposite. As I mentioned above: ya girl is nutty as a fruitcake. As a result, I often avoid extremely niche things in daily life which cause severe anxiety for me, Relevant examples here: I never look at my timeline. I never intentionally look at my follower number. Yup, it’s strange, I fully admit it, but it’s best for me to go with these things—usually. In Queen fandom, however, this avoidance both of analytic stats and of most direct engagement led to some problems... My followers grew without me realising, and way more people were reading my blog than I was aware of. I was still in a—“Wow, this fandom is very frustrating, and rife with ableism, racism, etc., so how do we fix this???”—mindset, and I wanted to share my opinions, sure! but I also thought I was sharing them with 15-20 like-minded people.

Now, intent is not impact, and I recognise that I was brusque, didn’t phrase things particularly sensitively, and absolutely did hurt some people by criticising the fandom so freely. I still regret this—and I regret just as much the fact that some assholes have used my criticising the fandom on my own blog as implicit justification for attacking authors. I have said on here many times that I don’t condone that behaviour—but I also think there’s some truth in the presumption that these anonymous malcontents felt my critiques somehow ‘permitted’ them to engage in abuse. For the first few months, though, I genuinely had no idea there was a link at all—and so I was initially slow to condemn this abusive behaviour in public, because I was taking it for granted all authors agreed it was shitty. It took someone directly telling me (shoutout to @a-froger-epic) that people had identified a connection between my posts and the anons, before everything fell into place.

I would like to offer my apologies to the fandom at large for not being more quick on the uptake about this, because I feel that had I realised sooner that these people were taking ‘inspiration’ in some way from me, it might have been easier to put a stop to it. It does seem that there is still a lot of confusion about whether I support them and which of their views I agree with. Let’s be 100% clear on this: I do not support the anonymous commenters on AO3. At times there is some, limited overlap between parts of their views and parts of mine, but even that is less than you may think—I often see anonymous comments from so-called ‘Freddie fans’ that I substantially disagree with.

Perhaps even more importantly: I do not support anyone who sends anonymous hate on Tumblr.

What’s all this about ‘overlap’ with the anons?

Let’s do a mini-summary of the myths vs. the truth. There are views I hold which are genuinely unpopular in the fandom—but which I own up to completely, and have never tried to hide in any way. I’ve never needed to use anonymous to share my opinions because I’m completely open about them! What people who don’t know me tend to have ‘heard’ about me, though, is usually a drastic distortion of my real opinions.

What people think I think:

- Freddie should never top.

- It’s okay to send anon hate if someone writes Freddie ‘wrong’.

- It’s more important to correct ‘wrong’ portrayals than to respect other writers.

- It’s inherently wrong to be more interested in band pairings than canon pairings.

- Freddie should be overtly written as a r*pe survivor/victim (and not doing this is wrong).

- Freddie should be overtly written as having an eating disorder (and not doing this is wrong).

- Kink fics are wrong.

What I actually think:

- I believe Freddie did have a strongly defined sexual identity with marked preferences, but I don’t think Jim Hutton lied when he said that Freddie topped. I believe Freddie did top, but this isn’t the time or place to get into my thoughts on why/when/how much. I do believe that my analysis of the sources relevant to this subject is as historically accurate as one can reasonably be in matters of sex (where historical accuracy will always be particularly limited and imperfect)—but I don’t think it’s morally wrong to write Freddie as topping more than he probably did.

- I don’t believe there’s only one ‘right’ version of Freddie (all others being ‘wrong’). I do believe it is possible to be more right or less right—but I’m also conscious of the fact that this scale of value is not one by which everyone measures fanfiction. As a result, then, I don’t think that any perceptions surrounding ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ justify sending anonymous, non-constructive criticism, or outright hate.

- I do believe constructive criticism is a good thing. I welcome and appreciate it myself; I have received it on my fics in Queen fandom, and it has made them better. I have been in writing workshops which included very forceful criticisms, and the value of such feedback has been intimately and immediately part of my life as a writer for years. However: in this case, I have accepted that my opinion differs from the general community preference, and so I no longer offer any constructive criticism (outside private beta-reading). I haven’t changed my view, but I’ve changed my practice to align with community norms.

- I do not think any single, individual writer has a personal responsibility to write about Freddie Mercury in any given way. That ranges from including the more distressing topics to which I’ve devoted attention (such as trauma)—to concentrating on ‘canon’ pairings like Jimercury—to, even, focusing on Freddie at all.

“Now, that doesn’t sound like you, @freddieofhearts,” you might be thinking. And I know it doesn’t; I think something I’ve done a poor job of articulating is the difference between how I view each individual fan—namely, as free to shape their creative experience at will, even in ways that I might find distressing or offensive; even in ways that you might find distressing or offensive—and the way I view the Collective. I think people have interpreted some of my critiques of ‘Queen Fandom’ as meaning something like: “You-in-particular, a specific Queen fan, are doing it wrong and should change everything about how you do it; also you don’t really care about Freddie.”

And—that’s not it. What any given fan, as an individual, does, isn’t a problem. And that can be true alongside—concurrently with—a multivalent critique of how the fandom is lacking in representation of Freddie’s life, with all that that (wonderful, deservedly celebrated, but also profoundly traumatic) life entailed. I still hold that view; I still have myriad problems with ‘the fandom’ (structurally, collectively, historically and presently—from the 1990s to the 2020s). Some of what I want to work on (away from the social life of fandom) is expressing those critiques with greater nuance, in ways that can’t be misinterpreted as shading any particular fanfiction author or subgenre of story.

In brief: I haven’t changed my mind, but I think Tumblr is an untenable environment in which to discuss the things I want to analyse, especially as there is an ever-present danger of hurting someone.

Can we keep in touch? Where is the fic?

I will drop by this account periodically to check out posts that friends have sent me, so you can always sent me a private message to ask for my contact details on the other app that I’m using now for fandom friends. Multiple Freddie conversations and projects are going on over there, off-Tumblr, with a much ‘gentler’ environment and no bad actors—I personally love it!

All my fic has been downloaded and saved. I don’t want to deal with constant harassment on AO3, but I’m happy to share a copy with anyone who missed it and wants to read/re-read something. I also saved everyone’s lovely comments and thoughtful con-crit, so none of that has been lost or erased.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the fandom, made me think, taught me, shared with me, sent me into fits of the giggles, collaborated with me creatively, and otherwise made this one hell of a ride! Love you all. ❤️

#au revoir my dears #lil gay bby

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skamamoroma · 4 years

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WTFOCK Season 3 Analysis- Touch and Distance - (Sander focused)

First of all, this will be long. As in, VERY long. If you know me and you followed me at ALL for Skam Italia or WTFOCK ‘analysis’ posts (which I WILL finish) then you’ll know the length to expect… so if you get even half way, you deserve a medal.

So, I have been promising this for a LONG time. I think I first said I’d write this when the reunion clip was released and I just… haven’t but seeing as we’re all in quarantine and I’m doing anything and everything to stay sane in my flat alone and we could all do with stuff to cheer us up, I’m offering this to fandom and I hope it makes you smile.

I think the reason I fell in love with Skam, the format and the intense character focus is because I love just that. I have always had an obsession with strong character driven TV shows/movies and even when I was tiny, I wrote an essay about Mary Poppins because I found her so mysterious and amazing. Shows like Skam and its remakes, when they’re GOOD they’re really really bloody amazing, mainly because they hone in on character detail and really use it for that perfect Skam-esque “show not tell” format. I’ve always found that kind of stuff so interesting and over the years have held this little collection of couples/characters/friendships from allsorts of shows/movies/theatre dear because they celebrate nuance… and Skam just spoils me!!

I have been MASSIVELY impressed with WTFOCK have done with Sander. He feels so fleshed out and dynamic as a character and in SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS too. I think one of the things I was so giddy about was the way they still managed to keep the mystery there while also making it seem like we knew him so well. And we do. But I think that’s the reason it’s so cool because a lot of the things we know about Sander, he hasn’t really TOLD us. We’ve learned it through his actions or from reading into his words, from his reactions to people and the way he lives his life. That, to me, is like crack hahaha. I live for that stuff and for analysing a character and so I became a bit fixated on the way they used touch in season 3.

Now, it’s not just with Sander but with Robbe too. Touch was an ENORMOUS part of the season and we never really EVER had either of them talk about it. Robbe never really expressed verbal discomfort with touch early on but we saw it and Sander never expressed how important touch was to him but we witnessed it...and now we’re watching wtfockdown with Sander specifically struggling with lack of touch. Safe to say, I knew I had to write this eventually and after quite a few messages (you lovely lot), I am doing this for you. Enjoy!

SANDER FIRST...

SANDER.

When it comes to Sander, I feel like I have SO MUCH TO SAY but I think, the most important thing, is that touch is a cornerstone of character in terms of what calms him, what makes him happy, what makes him feel connected, what soothes him, how he expresses love, how he wants to show love, how he flirts… ALL OF IT, and distance is what plagues him.

I re-watched each clip in turn and I’m still obsessed with how they layered his character with this idea. No other Even and not even Even himself has this element so strongly emphasised. Yes, they all like touch and some of the parallels have specific things that form part of their character like Eliott and Lucas and the whole touch of skin thing and Cris/Joana with the hair/cheeks thing and Even always loved to ground himself in touching Isak ETC… but with Sander, it’s such a narrative and it’s woven in so beautifully. ABOVE ALL, what makes me smile and what is so meaningful is that as Robbe grows and opens up and learns about touch himself (see my Robbe post to come), we see that Sander is gifted this really sweet boy who LOVES to touch and who is incredibly affectionate and finds himself learning that he is INCREDIBLY good at providing comfort. So their love story also becomes a story of touch and navigating distance from those perspectives.

I guess writing it out helps to see it so I’ll go chronologically.

The first time we see Sander use touch is when he’s in the kitchen with Robbe. The entire scene is practically choreographed it’s so fluid but the lack of space, the shuffling around each other and the general ‘oh my god this person makes me feel things’ vibe makes the fact that when Sander purposefully touches Robbe for the first time, it’s a THING… that hand on his back. They do kind of brush up against each other a few times but that little linger of the camera on Sander’s hand on Robbe’s back makes me GIDDY because it’s all so intentional. It’s Robbe’s face that does me in. You don’t need his words because he does this sort of glance behind him and a bashful sort of dazed stumble… it’s so obvious that being touched like that by Sander got to him in an overwhelming way. It’s all electricity and that kind of giddy new love thing in the kitchen but that moment KILLS me because it’s touch that Robbe WANTS but doesn’t feel able to have… but Sander gives it because he’s SANDER. He’s demonstrable and purposeful (I will use that word a lot!) with touch.

Sander does stuff in a way that’s bold and purposeful (told you) and touch is part of that. ALL THE WAY OR NO WAY - right? So many times, you can see Sander decide and then act immediately. SO MANY TIMES. In the supermarket, feeding Robbe, in the bar when he decides to take Robbe off on an adventure, at the swimming pool ETC. SO MANY. And touch is a thing all wrapped up in that sense of purpose and spontaneity. His actions are mostly not overbearing or unwanted though which is so key. People seem to feel comfortable with him even if he is a little forward and NOBODY more than Robbe. Robbe doesn’t recoil, he lets it happen and not in the passive way we see him do early on but in the OH WOW HE TOUCHED ME way that can only come with attraction and early feelings. BUT THEY HAD KNOWN EACH OTHER HOURS. Hours, and Robbe was fine with it.

Sander and flirting... HE IS SO OBVIOUS and touch is part of it every single time. That whole ‘oops I rolled into you in the sand’ is just textbook, man! Hahaha. I laugh at him early on because he is genuinely adorable with how obvious he is. Same can be said for the “oops I just need to grab this bottle that just happens to be right next to you which means I need to stand so close to you and wrap my arms around you’ - hahahaha. Not to mention the ‘oh let me teach you to turn on the oven and lightly touch our fingers’. Purposeful.

Then you get the first time they’re together alone for their bike ride. I mean, we all know Sander is giddy. It’s what makes it so sweet to watch because he’s just SO HAPPY to have Robbe by himself and to go off on this adventure together. I LOVE the way he holds Robbe’s hand after they high five…. BOY. He takes advantage of stuff while he can. But when they get to the pool, it’s obviously an Even move and we all know how it goes but the first time he touches Robbe is to kiss him. We know it’s all he wanted, we know it was his plan, we know he’s been wanting to do it a long time but I LOVE that they kept in the recoil from Robbe because it is absolutely NOT a gradual progression for Robbe when it comes to Sander… it’s ALL IN and scary and overwhelming and Robbe’s instincts kick in but the second Robbe kisses Sander back, we get the start of seeing Sander and touch being a HUGE DEAL. Robbe is still learning and faced with the way Sander acts first, thinks later, the differences between them in this moment are STARK. It’s why it all goes so catastrophically wrong afterwards but why I understood what Robbe did even if it was so very wrong.

Sander is SUCH an Even and I’ve always said he reminds me of Even the most of all the parallels but especially when he kisses. He’s a passionate dude! He kisses with meaning and with all he has and it’s little wonder Robbe described it as his head exploding… poor guy! You get that first glimpse of Sander acting on his feelings and he’s overwhelming. In that pool, he grasps and holds on and Robbe’s hair becomes a total THING for him.

For me, I get most interested in touch from Chernobyl onwards. THAT CLIP. The stuff in it that’s so subtle but AMAZING when it comes to Sander makes me roll around in it, in the way it MEANS so much and says a lot about who he is. The DISTANCE he keeps from Robbe is not something we’ve seen from him yet. It’s clearly not comfortable for him but he deserves to keep it until he feels comfortable and I LOVE LOVE LOVE that he only moves closer but DOESN’T touch Robbe yet. And this next moment is what sparked my obsession…. The “i’m going to nearly kiss you and then not kiss you” moment. He uses touch to make a point. Purposeful. He stands close but they don’t touch and then he teases with it… tests Robbe’s response with it to see what he’d do. Robbe doesn’t move and allows it. He then clarifies how Robbe feels about stuff now and the second he gets his answer … fuck all of that noise and fuck all the issues I had in my head (a sentiment we KNOW Sander understands and grasps onto eventually - Chernobyl being the way he himself describes the effects of his bipolar disorder) he goes all in and closes the distance. KILLS ME. That use of touch to make a point is Sander ALLOVER. Never without purpose.

They don’t STOP touching AT ALL… until it’s used AGAIN. This time, this huge focus on pulling apart. It’s gradual. They disconnect from their bodies then they disconnect from lips and then that lingering shot on their hands and the whole holding on until the very last second…COME ON. It’s so perfect. So intentional and so meaningful. The fact that Sander holds on purposefully for so long until he absolutely can’t anymore, it makes him STUMBLE…. If that’s not a whole metaphor for who he is as a character then I don’t know what is! He WON’T allow that distance until he absolutely has to… and that fact characterises their ENTIRE story right up until wtfockdown!

Onto the cuddle scene and again, from Chernobyl, it’s full of poignant moments. It’s an overload in terms of seeing Sander respond to touch. There’s a lot of touching in this clip, a lot of playful stuff and kisses and cuddles but I think there are a few specifics that are in there for a reason that say so much. The first is the hair stroking. Now, we know Robbe and Sander LOVE touching each other’s hair and there’s a fair amount of pulling involved too… haha… but it’s so telling the way that Sander relaxes under Robbe’s touch. He spends most of that scene with his eyes closed. It relaxes him, makes him sleepy and comfortable and Robbe clearly realises it because when Sander seems distressed, Robbe goes straight to do it again. It’s all part of Robbe’s journey wrapped up in there too, learning how his touch can be soothing.I love that Sander barely moves from his position upside down on the bed. He allows Robbe the ability to do ANYTHING. He lets Robbs move around him, lets Robbe touch him and climb on top of him. He just basks in it and please go rewatch it and watch his eyes even when Robbe is talking… he closes them constantly like it’s making him fall asleep. He’s so comforted by it. When Robbe climbs on him, his eyes are even closed! He’s just VERY VERY happy allowing Robbe anything when it comes to moving around him and in his space. He lets Robbe koala himself on his back without a flinch, is so comfortable with the affection and clearly soaking it all in. I think the other moment is when Sander realises Robbe’s jealousy/upset and goes to very purposefully lie down against him to tuck his head under Robbe’s chin. The purpose in it, at the time, seemed kinda sheepish but we know better now. We KNOW Sander had tried to distance himself from Britt but she wasn’t allowing it and this is Sander purposefully closing that distance, taking it back and seeking Robbe’s touch again. It’s like he’s had that comforting touch now and, without it, it doesn’t feel right so he closes the distance the VERY SECOND he can. He does this a few times from here on out too… that lack of ability to stay apart from Robbe, the wish to keep that comfort coming.

There’s this struggle we see from him AGAIN and AGAIN. When stuff with Robbe suffers because Sander’s truth gets in the way (with Britt texting in the cuddle scene, with their distance before the reunion where Sander tried to leave Robbe behind etc)... he CANNOT wait to remove the distance as quickly as he possibly can. The only exception is when they’ve been apart post hotel and Sander is unwell… but we know he’s frightened, embarrassed, worried about hurting Robbe and we know that he’s trying to keep Robbe at arm’s length to protect him but… and I’ll get onto it later but it’s PERFECT to me that the second he has touch back, the second Robbe kisses him, he crumbles. It means THAT MUCH to him. It’s such a pattern with him and it starts here, with Sander crawling across the bed, not allowing Robbe to be too far away while he still has him.

For me, it epitomises that idea of “i don’t know if I’ll find someone like that, at least not someone who loves me”. Because, for Sander, he WANTS so badly. He wants to be in love and to find someone special and be able to show love but he’s terrified. For such a purposeful person, someone who acts on instinct, that is clearly so hard for him. He WANTS but he has to force himself NOT TO for all of the reasons he gives and for all of the reasons we can read from his behaviour. Those moments he stays away - aka post assault, post hotel - are all for a good reason and yet the second he realises that the worries that lead to his belief that he can’t HAVE are unfounded or resolved, he closes any and all distance and holds on for dear life. “I’m never ever letting go of you”. ALL THE WAY OR NO WAY. He either allows himself everything and that ‘all in’ sense of falling head over heels and clinging on for dear life or he cuts and runs… and the cutting/running part honestly must have hurt so badly for him. We know how much Robbe means to him and how much touch and comfort he gets from their relationship… to leave that behind when he can’t remain over the other side of the bed from Robbe normally must have been so hard for him.

ANYWAY. The date. I’ve talked about this endlessly but the first minute or so of this clip is some of the best chemistry I’ve seen in the SCU and, in general, to be honest. It hit me like a freight train when I first saw it. For LGBT+ folks, seeing stuff like this is impactful. Mainly because it’s shown as so natural and normal and given the same respect and focus on desire and sweetness and simplicity as hetero love stories have been given for millenia!

They touch constantly throughout this clip but I just LOVE the focus on it. The camera lingers. Every shot is there for a reason. Sander’s touch goes from playful to casually affectionate to passionate to suggestive within seconds and he drowns in it! It’s mesmerising to watch. Again, it almost feels choreographed. The moment that kills me is Sander just running one finger across Robbe’s collar bone. WHOEVER decided to include that --- director or writer or even actor --- it’s just perfect. It’s so Sander. He doesn’t stop touching and that little focus on the fact that he always wants to show how he feels through touching Robbe...the fact that it is on his skin when Robbe is wearing a full on sweatshirt shows how much Sander seeks intimacy out. It’s so purposeful once again and yet so simple… but the main thing is that Sander uses touch to keep that connection going. The music change at that exact moment is what does it for me. It’s dream-like, swoony and mesmerising. You can feel the dazed sense of love and adoration, the intimacy of the fact that Sander can’t help but hold onto Robbe’s hair again and even when he’s whispering to him, can’t help but chase it with kisses. Sander uses every thought and feeling he has inside and translates it directly into touch. He communicates with it!

Which leads pretty nicely onto the reunion… because the next time we have Sander able to reach out physically is SO MUCH LATER. The assault, the distance Robbe enforces (for good reason because of what he believes happened at the party) and then the confusion about the mural creates SO MUCH DISTANCE.

The start of the reunion clip is one of my all time favourite SCU moments from any remake. The acting is near perfection. I’ve posted tons about it before but GOD. I love that, to this point, after that intense, hazy kind of love they were starting in the bar… everything was torn away from them. As I said before, Sander is either ALL IN or not at all. When he’s in, he’s REALLY in and touch is fundamental.

So it KILLLLLLSSSSSS MEEEEEEE (Yes, I am being dramatic but GOD) that the first thing he does when he walks in the foyer of Robbe’s building, without explanation and after so long apart and so much mess existing between them is… close the distance between them physically.

This scene reminds me of the La Grotta scene from Skam It s2. Every touch and movement in that scene with Marti and Nico is a form of communication and it’s the same here. I guess it’s why I love both scenes so much because ‘show not tell’ is precious and intelligent and so so much more meaningful for a viewer. The way Sander just stands there and then without words, kisses Robbe and tries to do what he can normally do so easily and communicate through his touches is heartbreaking. But too much has gone on. It’s not possible to communicate that way after so much hurt and confusion.

Then that forehead touch. GOD. I remember watching it and being so bowled over without how much was SAID by both of them. The way that Sander leans into it like he KNOWS he can’t use kisses to sort it all out but just NEEDS comfort and Robbe’s touch… and the way Robbe lets himself have it for a moment but then makes genuine crying noises of frustration to get Sander to stop. The “I want this so much but stop, it’s not fair what you’re doing” is so obvious in his actions. It’s all because it’s how they communicate. BECAUSE touch is their love language, the fact that they can’t give into it is PHYSICALLY painful for them both. They both just stand there with their eyes closed. Sander looks exhausted, devastated but also so deeply comforted by Robbe’s presence and the fact that he can be close to him again in equal measure. Robbe lets out this big sigh and it screams “I know, I feel the same, this feels so right and I miss you so much but I can’t let you forget everything that happened” - YET THEY DON’T STOP TOUCHING. I love that regardless, they stay connected and cannot physically part themselves. It’s written all over Sander’s face how much it means to have Robbe so close and Robbe’s little nose rub is plain adorable. They are literally standing there comforting each other while at the same time trying to communicate through nothing but touch… and the RELIEF in those touches too.

It’s little wonder that what happens next happens in the way it does. Those few words from Sander and the touches between them are enough for them to just KNOW. Their connection is so fundamental that it’s worth fighting through and relying on that gut instinct for them.

Sander is then able to do what he’s good at and be purposeful, firm and to throw himself into it. ALL THE WAY. Once he knows he is ok again, that he has permission and is allowed to let his heart go, he just falls into it and it’s ALL TOUCHING from then on. Every kiss is so meaningful and there are a few specific moments that are really meaningful to me.

The first one is Sander’s smile when he lands on the bed. He is never happier than when he’s able to be free like this. He revels in the ability to throw himself into his feelings. He’s ridiculously enviable tbh. The next moment is the whole clawing, clinging thing he does. Yet again, poor Robbe’s hair gets yanked every which way but I love that we get that glimpse of ‘never letting you go’ mentality he has to keep Robbe as close as physically possible and the way he closes his eyes, smiles and loses himself in those moments. They’re so close to Sander POV it’s crazy. It reminds me of during the cuddle scene when he closed his eyes. Touch grounds him in the most astounding way! I LOVE that the lyrics during this as “take it how you want it, take all my love”. PERFECT, man. That idea of give and take is SO IMPORTANT for them, for Sander especially. The ALL THE WAY mentality he has means that he could only EVER fall in love with someone who is able to counter it, someone who is able to GIVE IN to Sander the way he needs and lose themself too the way he likes. He could only ever fall in love with someone as willing to give and take the way that he is with comfort… and Robbe fits the bill, which is obviously as much of a surprise to him too! I think that’s where their connection comes in. That spark between them and the way they feel for each other is one of contentment so they’re quite happy taking what they need from the other person because the other is SO GIVING. Robbe is so affectionate which is what Sander craves and Sander is so purposeful and bold in his ways which is what Robbe needs. The last moment is the hand holding. Again, Sander is grounded by that physical connection. He clings and holds on and receives so much comfort from it. The knowledge that they’re in something together is clearly huge for them both.

The morning after scene is most meaningful in terms of touch when they get into Robbe’s room. I LOVE how natural it all is. Sander is very happy letting Robbe do what he wants again and it’s almost seamless for Robbe just to sit on his lap. But he’s completely incapable of reigning himself in. The purposeful side of Sander comes out in full distraction mode with Sander genuinely incapable of keeping his hands to himself. The whole playful kind of sexy “I’ll throw you around” thing is not only them at peak comfort with each other but Sander’s way of physically showing he’s not going anywhere, of reminding Robbe that he’s all Sander’s attention is on and all he cares about and that he can DO this now, just toss Robbe onto the bed and crawl all over him - hahahaha. He treats Robbe like he’s precious and completely focused on but also treats Robbe perhaps the way HE wants to be treated… those promises followed by touching with a little possessiveness, that reminder that he won’t be left alone. He gives it all to Robbe and in true Sander style, tries to communicate through touch as much as he possibly can because words mean honesty and they mean a risk of losing it all.

The next notable moment is YET AGAIN, Sander playing with touch when he arrives at the flat. The “nope, Robbe, you’re not getting what you want until we do this fun thing I want to do with you to create a tradition”. He does it twice, playing with denying Robbe touch and physical contact. He has a task to do and he needs Robbe focused on it so he uses touch to keep that focus sharp… and then the fact that the VERY SECOND that task is done, Sander literally walks straight into Robbe’s arms and kinda carries him off towards Robbe’s room makes me laugh. He’s like “ok touching is allowed right this instant” … he knows himself. If he’d have allowed them to touch before he did his task, there’d have been ABSOLUTELY NO SHOE PUT OUT! He’s self aware ;)

Then the hotel… and oh my heart breaks and is soothed in equal measure because this evening was HANDS DOWN one of my most favourite Skam watching experiences. It is gut wrenching in real time and so beautifully acted, I can’t handle it, especially from Willem DS. That kid can act rings around most professional Hollywood actors. They both can. Yet another Skam remake showcasing young talent at its most special and honest. Anyway, I digress!

The shower scene has to be talked about. The show runners etc explained why they included it where the original didn’t (although planned to!) and I get why some found it a little too much but, for them, it worked. I mean, I’m not the person to talk about sex scenes but I definitely CAN talk tons about them when they’re MEANINGFUL and layered and this one is. It’s complete and utter trust. I love so much of the camera work here because you can see they tried to be as respectful as possible while also getting the meaning across and it worked so well… especially as the stuff that clicks for me is Sander’s behaviour. He’s so lost in it. Again, he’s someone who acts on instinct and needs someone who will respond to him with understanding. If someone’s not on the same page then he’s THROWN (and this is why the whole cyber sex things is killing me with its meaning for him!). Again with Robbe’s hair being pulled all over the place but Sander allows himself take and be taken and it’s so important to who he is that it’s ALL THE WAY kind of love and that he’s allowed to be both in control and also completely vulnerable.

The way they segue into the shot of the bed and sander is completely wrapped up in Robbe’s arms kills me. There’s no one right way for them. Touch comes to Sander in his ability to be DEMONSTRABLE and also to RECEIVE. In these moments, he just snuggles into Robbe and takes and takes and takes and takes… but only because Robbe is so perfectly willing to provide. It’s why they work. That balance is what is so key about their relationship. Sander feels ok to suddenly go from firm and handsy to extremely vulnerable and the shot when the camera closes in on his face so serene and at ease, happy to be kissed repeatedly on the forehead by Robbe is just incredibly meaningful and emotional. He is allowed to be himself and to fall into it without worry even when he’s at his most vulnerable. He basks in it and it’s so comforting to watch. I love that he plays with Robbe’s necklace because not only is it him looking at a guardian angel around Robbe’s neck but it’s like a tick to ground him and comfort him right back. A touch to something so fundamentally Robbe.

The segue into the second clip where Sander is even MORE wrapped up in Robbe’s arms breaks my heart. I remember seeing the og Skam cuddle clip all those years back and realising that my god, I’d never seen affection from an LGBT+ couple before in that innocent, gentle, normal way! It’s sad that this was the case but it’s why Skam got under my skin and why the s3 storyline is always so precious to me. This is yet another example but throw in the respect shown to mental illness in a really human and raw way and I’m gone. I love that Sander is able to be so cuddly and open without worry. He’s going through it, struggling and when this clip aired I remember almost every post in the tag was about his eyes, the frantic eyes showing that so much is going on inside his head while he lies there still, soaking up the comfort Robbe is willing to provide. The antithesis is insane but works so well. Robbe has no idea that he’s effectively holding Sander together. He’s clinging on. He’s doing what he always said he would and never letting Robbe go.

The night time switch into Sander’s struggles hurts because he’s still trying so hard not to let go but his brain is struggling, he’s panicking, he’s not in control of himself and he’s scared. You can see it all over his face, in his eyes and body language that he WANTS to stay with Robbe and when Robbe asks him to come back, tries to pull him back to cuddle, Sander goes because he ALWAYS DOES. He tries so so hard till he can’t try anymore and that distance is forced upon him. It was devastating to watch in real time because we all KNEW what was going to happen (we’d seen it all before) but, for some reason, the way Sander was and what we’d learned about him made him being separated from Robbe in this vulnerable state really upsetting. He was so happy in Robbe’s arms, so comforted and then all of sudden it was gone.

The fact that the cycle happens again to lead us into the next time we see Sander physically WITH Robbe is just crazy meaningful because this time, Sander’s truth is not able to be hidden. He can’t use touch to distract and to ignore his thoughts and reality. Everything about the way he acts is out of shame and embarrassment and fear of not being loved for who he is - flaws and all. When I eventually finish my analysis posts, I have SO MUCH to say about this but my goodness, Sander is the only Even aside from Eliott who doesn’t reach out and they both have that same feeling of shame in common. The difference is that Sander actively tries to hide away, to push Robbe away and ACTS on what the other Evens said aka I’ll hurt you, it won’t work, I should leave… he physically does that. The thing that makes me a little misty eyed is the fact that he also provides Robbe with information to help find him. He desperately wants Robbe to be the only one to find him while also simultaneously wanting him as far away from him as possible. He’s done it before with the mural, that “I love you and I need to show you but I can’t be with you”. It’s that desperate pull they have that just ends in mess but at the core has such love and comfort. Sander has run away from everyone, hasn’t reached out to any of them except Robbe and it’s his way of closing that distance even if he’s so sure Robbe is better off without him. Why else would he send Robbe that message, effectively using their history and experience to suggest where he is. Robbe was all he wanted, was all that comforted him (hence the drawings all over the walls) and the fact that when Sander is found, he kept pushing and pushing and pushing and resisting and falling apart through grief and pain and shame and every other negative feeling that overwhelms him… but STILL follows when Robbe asks. He’s trying so hard for the NO WAY of it all but it was never going to work. The fact that when Robbe properly touches him, he falls apart is just about the most obvious thing for me. Robbe is comfort and safety. He may not have all of the answers but just being close is so clearly and viscerally affecting for Sander that he collapses and lets Robbe take the weight of him both literally and metaphorically. That touch is all he needs to fall back into ALL THE WAY and let himself believe.

The fact that the next scene starts with Sander, completely wrapped around Robbe, their skin touching and Robbe stroking Sander’s hand just goes to show how much he allowed himself to use that touch again not only as comfort but as belief that he doesn’t need to mask things anymore. He doesn’t need to pretend and hide his reality, he can be open and vulnerable and also have the ALL THE WAY too. Robbe is that solid warm weight and reassurance. The purposeful Sander is still buried there, it’s just the vulnerability is too overwhelming and so he relies so much on Robbe here to provide what he needs. And god BLESS Robbe’s enormous affectionate heart because he’s perfect with him. Sander clearly meant the words from the day before, signifying he really expected Robbe to change his mind in the morning...those really quiet questions in the dark to Robbe are just heartbreaking because he needs reassurance. Robbe closes the distance to him, gets so close, kisses him multiple times, presses their foreheads together and doesn’t judge… and Sander is completely comforted enough to be able to fall asleep.

THEN… one of my ultimate favourite moments of Sander and touch. It’s like a culmination of EVERYTHING we’ve learned about Sander (and also it’s the same for Robbe but I’ll leave that for my Robbe post!!). He’s still vulnerable but getting back to his usual self a little playing games with Milan and you can see the spark in his eyes, the way he uses his words again to assert how he feels but, above all, it’s that contrast between him asking for a kiss and leaning back into Robbe in this purposeful way that’s perfectly softened by the fact it’s him receiving and seeking comfort too. It’s then that both sides of Sander come together and the fact he’s found what he seeks it in one person is so special. Robbe is EVERYWHERE. He’s all hands in Sander’s hair, legs either side of him, resting his chest against Sander’s back, holding his head gently, kissing everything he can get his lips on (mouth, nose, head, hair) and then settling with his arms around Sander’s neck. It’s EVERYTHING. Sander has shown from the start in most things he does how much touch is important in terms of asserting himself, seeking comfort and showing love and in this tiny little scene it has ALL THREE and is why they are both so dear to me as a pair. It’s INCREDIBLY romantic and very reassuring for anyone who has ever struggled in the way Robbe or Sander has… because it confirms that it is possible for people with specific needs and people who have been shaped by their experiences and come out of it with certain needs and vulnerabilities are able to be loved completely without judgement.

“In good time, you’ll come to know, when you release, when you let go, you can find yourself where you belong”

The best thing though is the way that Sander responds in this moment. He shakes his head and smiles to himself like he’s coming out of a trance. That little ‘yeah’ is adorable. That moment is enough to say all there is about what touch means to Sander as a human being and a partner. For a moment, Robbe helps him forget, sends him a little dizzy with love, gives Sander overwhelming comfort that Sander disappears into it and, as cheesy as it sounds, they fit. It’s exactly what all of the Even and Isak parallels had, that ‘i save you, you save me right back’ love story. They all did it in different ways but with these two, I was stunned with how much they put into the unspoken, especially with Sander. We don’t see him as much, we don’t get inside his head like Robbe’s but we still understand him, possibly more than any other Even parallel by the end of season 3 and this is the season closest to the original for unanswered questions! It’s why I don’t at all mind questions left unanswered and a lack of exposition and clean cut resolution because if the emotion is there and the nuance is there then it does half of it for you.

I love that the final scene of the season, for Sander purposes, is him wrapped in Robbe’s arms! It’s kinda poetic.

I love his character so much. He’s insanely expressive and complex and he’s fascinating to me and to have WTFOCKDOWN is a total gift...because not only does it give us insights we’d never have gotten otherwise, we get this continuation of Robbe and Sander’s relationship and what is it about…. TOUCH. Hahaha. I mean, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect topic for exploration of who they are together as a starter for ten, not to mention it’s so Sander focused too!

When it comes to Wtfockdown, we get to see Sander operating in enforced distance. We KNOW that when distance has been a thing in the past, he has tried everything he can to make up for it (murals, drawings, reaching out to Robbe cryptically). That compensation for the distance never ever worked. It always made it so that when Sander eventually had Robbe close again, he threw himself back in head first and touch was HUGE when it came to that. Now, Sander has Robbe completely and vice versa and no doubt knows fully what it is like to have that comfort and touch all of the time… but now it has been taken away. For Robbe, he’s an affectionate koala of a human but his relationship with touch has been a journey of discovery and of self but he doesn’t depend on it like Sander does. He communicates with it but, for Sander, it’s a vital part of who he is. I love that the first clip has Sander asking to meet up… hahaha. I remember being so giddy reading that because OF COURSE. He’s trying everything he can again. Then he broke my heart because this time, his form of compensation is to take Robbe with him on his walks. It’s yet ANOTHER form of compensation to try to fill that void where touch once was!

Clip 2 starts their face to face journey and GUYS. I mean, Sander flat out saying that the thing he misses most about Robbe is his touch just about broke my heart and made me giddy once again! They really did that. He’s so happy to see Robbe, to spend time with him but over and over again he’s repeating ways to stop the distance like swapping places with Robbe’s mamma…! Bless his heart. The fact that he says “there’s nothing better than you”, he REALLY does mean it. We’ve seen a whole season of why that’s the truth! We’ve seen him reach that conclusion! Also, that compensation once again on dreams and daydreaming… ANY WAY HE CAN to stop the distance. He breaks my heart.

Clip 3...ONCE AGAIN. “The endlessness of this tunnel symbolises the physical distance between them”. He cannot cope with it. This one made me a bit emotional when I first saw it. They’re not just words for his fairytale; he means them. The distance is DIFFICULT for him. You can see it on his face when he says those words, he frowns. He’s speaking the truth even if he’s making it seem a little light hearted. Then that little private moment where it says he just wants to be with Robbe. It’s genuinely incredibly hard for him to not have Robbe nearby. For someone who thrives and depends so much on touch, the distance is painful and a genuine loss. It’s not just ‘i miss my boyfriend’ because there’s a real nuance there, a real part of who Sander is that prioritises touch and closeness so significantly.

Clip 4. It took me FAR too long to get through this clip the first time around because I SHOULD NOT BE SEEING THIS but hey ho. I watched it again for you, dudes. Sander’s on the quest for compensation for the distance again, this time trying something new and yea, it’s a risk but he means it. It’s something he wants to try because it’s Robbe and it’s fun and he loves him and misses him and feels like it’s another way to feel like the distance isn’t so vast. The moment Robbe tells him he’s not into it, Sander looks a little crushed but immediately understands and lies down. Now, for me, I might be reading so much into it but because we have seen what touch means, as a stand in for it, and Sander now feeling so comfortable with Robbe, that moment of ‘I’ve gone too far’, ‘we’re not on the same page’ is huge for them. Sander can’t find what he’s looking for during the distance and you can see he feels so embarrassed but the moment he laughs at himself, tells Robbe that just lying together is enough and respects Robbe, you can see him trying to get back on that even plane. He loves Robbe so much and would never want to make him feel uncomfortable but for that split second, the comfort they have built wavered and Sander’s ability to be completely vulnerable was questioned… until it wasn’t and all was well for the moment because they talk and love and try. I love that they did that. I love that Sander’s inherent need for closeness was brought to light and Robbe’s need to GIVE affection was shown to be so true… only in person. Robbe thrives off that honest touch whereas Sander is grounded by it, comforted by it and finds it necessary...so without it is left floundering. THE LAYERS, guys. Rolling around in them!!!!

Clip 5 and we see Sander questioning himself. Sander still hasn’t quite felt ok since the other night and he’s letting it affect him. That questioning himself is the same stuff we saw pre-final reunion where he allows his issues to cloud his judgement and he spirals a little when left to his own devices. It’s that insecurity that Robbe managed to settle in him, that push and pull they have but Sander is human and he’s struggling and Robbe’s not there to provide that settlement. He doesn’t RELY on Robbe so much as WANT him because he makes things better. The fact that all the while, Robbe is learning how far his own ability to provide affection and closeness from afar is able to go by seeking advice from Milan makes me want to weep… because the writing is perfect! Of course he is. Everything we know about him tells us he’d do this!

So we’re in present day and I can’t wait to see what they do next. The way they write these two separately and together shows so much understanding of who the characters are, what they mean to each other and this great respect for honouring what they’ve created with so much gentle nuance and emotion. If the past 50000000000 words didn’t suggest it clearly enough - I love what they’re doing so much!

If you’re still awake after all that, you’re super human. Thank you for reading and this post is LONG overdue but it’s here and as rambly as you’d expect. Robbe’s specific post will be along soon! <3

#wtfock

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gettin-bi-bi-bi · 4 years

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Hey, I've identified as bi for a few years now,but lately I feel very unsure and insecure about my sexuality because most of my crushes have been guys, and the one time I was in love,it was a guy too, but I also have major daddy issues and I get attached to men and idolise them very easily and I sometimes wonder if that's the reason why I feel more strongly about men,any advice how to be more confident in your sexuality and how to know if it's actual attraction or if it's just my daddy issues™? (I'm a girl btw)

This isn’t that easy to answer tbh. I’ve seen people say “real attraction is supposed to feel good” especially in regards to the old “am I bi or a lesbian”-question but that kind of disregards all the bisexual women who have internalised biphobia and struggle with accepting the attraction they feel for men (or other genders, too, for that matter). So, yeah... real attraction should feel good but societal pressure, sexual shame, internalised biphobia and other shit can make it really hard for some people to enjoy the very genuine attraction they feel.

All I can say, which is what I say to any person doubting themselves like that, is that your crush history alone doesn’t define your sexual identity. Identifying as bi is about recognising that you have a potential to be attracted to more than one gender. It doesn’t matter how many crushes you’ve had or what experiences you’ve made with which gender(s). At least it doesn’t have to matter. If it feels relevant and important to you then of course you can incorporate those past experiences in your identity-finding process. But you don’t have to. You can also just say “in theory I can see myself being attracted to people of multiple genders” and call it a day bisexuality.

Maybe you have a preference for men. That itself is debatable bc how does one even “measure” a preference like that... and again, it’s something that only you can figure out if you even want to figure it out. You are not obligated to analyse every tiny aspect of your sexuality. Unfortunately m-spec people tend to over-analyse things and we fall into this trap of thinking we have to justify every little nuance in attraction that differs between different genders in order to prove that we really are still bi and worthy of being part of this community (hint: that’s internalised biphobia!). But you can also just not give a fuck. You don’t have to write a thesis about your sexual identity and you don’t owe anyone a detailed explanation for why you have only had crushes on guys or why you still identify as bisexual or why you changed your label (if that’s what you want to do) or why you have a preference one way or another or how your daddy issues influence your preferences.... nobody is entitled to know any of that.

And let’s say you do have a preference for men (which I wouldn’t know but for the sake of the following let’s assume it for a second) who cares if that preference comes from daddy issues or something else? Also, “daddy issues” isn’t a diagnosis and it can literally mean anything from a completely absent father to an abusive father. You say you tend to “idolise” men and I agree that this can become a problem if those men that you like are all assholes and you end up being blind to that bc of an unhealthy attachment. If that is the case then I recommend therapy to get over those ”””daddy issues””” or... childhood trauma... or whatever it is. If you struggle with that then ask for help from a professional to unpack whatever those “daddy issues” actually are.

If I try to bring this all together then I’d say: you don’t have to find some “meta explanation” for why you are so attracted to men in order to justify that attraction. It can just be what it is and it’s not more or less “valid” if it is influenced by daddy issues. Let me tell you, when I was a teenager I was constantly accused by my peers of having “daddy issues” bc I was attracted to older men. Funny enough, at the time I had a great relationship with my dad (the issues started way later). Deep down I knew that daddy issues weren’t the reason for being into old guys but I still spend my entire adolescence wondering why I’m so fucked up that I can’t find boys my own age attractive. Turns out: there doesn’t have to be a big reason or some trauma or “issues” to explain why someone has a certain kink or type or preference. A lot of the time people’s sexuality is just what it is without any deeper Freudian meaning behind it. And likewise... you might just have strong feelings for men because, well, maybe you are very attracted to them - regardless of any issues with your father or not. You are allowed to be attracted to men and still be bi. You are allowed to be VERY attracted to men and still be bi.

Anyway... whether your attraction to men is real™ or not is for you to decide. You have to look at what you feel and what you want and interprete that in a way that feels right and authentic to you. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else but you. And it’s fine if you make a choice to back away from men for a while to sort this out in your head first. It’s also fine to try out other labels if you want to see if any of them feel more accurate than “bisexual”. It’s also fine to keep exploring your attraction to men and keep identifying as bi. It’s all up to you.

Maddie

#Anonymous

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radishcard55 · 4 years

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Best Love Tarot Card Cards Analysis Online Free & Accurate

Both a free tarot card analysis and also a psychic reading can provide something distinct and also important. If you're not thrilled with the idea of a in person conversation and also you don't like the task of trying to kind rapidly in an on the internet chat session, the good old telephone is a excellent standby. The tone can be casual or intimate, depending on the psychic you choose after reading their bio. Lots of believe that tarot card reviewing originated from old Egypt. For beginner readers, Howe recommends two standard spreads, a three-card pull as well as the Celtic Cross. The former is where 3 cards are drawn from the deck to stand for the past, present, and future or mind, body, and also spirit of the person reading. Howe says you can even up the ante to a six-card pull, with one card standing for each location. 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It's often a prompt to reflect on your life's broader lessons and also general themes. In the late 16th and also very early 17th centuries, tarot was a simple party game. By checking out our overview as well as viewing the profiles on the sites, you can look for a psychic with considerable experience with tarot card cards and also the particular subject of your concern. Wherever you have a laptop computer, tablet computer, or mobile phone and also some downtime to concentrate on you, you can obtain a tarot card analysis. When looking for in-person tarot card readings, you're limited by your location. Online, you have a vast range of visitors to choose from throughout the USA or all over the world. JOURNAL YOUR TAROT READING Log your tarot readings in your journal. Add your own notes and also inquiries to all of your tarot analyses. I am a large follower of having coaches as well as finding out techniques from others and after that making it my own. Take what offers you and also leave the rest behind-- we all absorb user-friendly details in different means. I would certainly constantly advise that you get tarot readings from a expert as well as discover what their procedure involves. After I have actually jazzed up the deck, I wage the type of instinctive reading that I offer my clients. You don't have to invest a lot of cash to obtain a psychic analysis. Actually, you can get started with free psychic analyses online making use of several various choices. Like a horoscope analysis, an astrology analysis will certainly make use of details regarding your exact birth date, consisting of the moment you were born and the location of your birth, to plot a birth graph. This graph utilizes numerous holy factors to identify their result on your life, including your past, existing, as well as potential future. 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The minor arcana consists of 4 suits, similar to typical playing cards. These tarot cards take care of events of our daily lives, though they're anything yet boring. The circumstances connected with these tarot cards may have memorable impacts. The website uses a range of solutions in addition to checking out tarot. Some decks exist primarily as artwork, and such art decks often include only the 22 significant arcana. A really casual description of guidelines for a tarot-like deck is given in a manuscript by Martiano da Tortona prior to 1425. Obscure descriptions of video game play or video game terms adhere to for the following two centuries till the earliest well-known full description of rules for a French variation in 1637. Tarocchini has survived in Bologna and also there are still others played in Piedmont as well as Sicily, however in Italy the game is generally less preferred than elsewhere. The job of Eden Gray and others in the 1960s caused an surge of appeal in tarot card analysis beginning in 1969. Tarot card analysis rapidly came to be related to New Age believed, indicated partly by the popularity of David Palladini's Rider-Waite-Smith-inspired Aquarian Tarot, initially released in 1968. A psychic reading, on the other hand, will certainly use the psychic's gift of clairvoyance to acquire and connect details.

#tarot reading #tarot card reading

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housmania · 6 years

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In Defense of TJLC

A response to this Slate podcast and to general misconceptions.

Hello! Call me soe. I like cats, BBC Sherlock, and friendly online communities. I hope you do too.

I also blog about TJLC. So, when a Slate podcast came out this week portraying TJLCers in a jarringly negative light, I was dismayed. What I heard was not the community I know.

This post’s aim is to tell the other side of the story. I’m writing both for people who support TJLC and were shocked to hear of the podcast, and for people outside TJLC whose initial impressions have been skewed by the podcast or other outside sources.

I’ll address four of the most common arguments against TJLC through the lens of the argument presented by Willa Paskin, the podcast’s creator:

TJLC, as a theory, is “far-fetched” and merits no serious consideration.

TJLCers are dogmatic, ideological, and close-minded.

TJLCers have hated on people outside of TJLC to an unusual and appalling extent.

TJLC has brought more harm into the world than good.

I intend to refute these points. In the process, I hope to represent your run-of-the-mill TJLCer: not a hateful extremist, but rather someone who supports a theory, enjoys discussing it, and is happy to let those who don’t live their happy lives.

It also means adhering to the standards of a good TJLC meta writer: going through the podcast thoroughly, addressing Ms. Paskin’s correct insights as well as her failings; reading and acknowledging critics and downright opponents; citing all sources; and remaining civil and open-minded. I wish Ms. Paskin had afforded us these privileges.

I genuinely believe that Ms. Paskin meant well. Nonetheless, the biases of her sources, combined with several misconceptions and imperfect research, result in a piece that portrays TJLC inaccurately.

To understand what the podcast got wrong, we first need to cover:

What is TJLC?

TJLC is the theory that the characters John Watson and Sherlock Holmes will end up in a canonical romantic relationship on the BBC show Sherlock. People who support this theory are called TJLCers. TJLCers write analyses of the show, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and numerous other sources known as “metas”.

TJLC is short for “The Johnlock Conspiracy.” I must immediately clarify that this name is a joke. It began humorously and is always, always used tongue-in-cheek. Keep this in mind: Many misconceptions about TJLC arise from the fact that we take very few things seriously, as I’ll discuss later.

What isn’t TJLC?

TJLC is not the same as Johnlock.

Johnlock refers just to shipping John/Sherlock—thinking they’d make a cute romantic couple, without necessarily having any expectation of that happening on the show.

More fundamentally: Johnlock is about creating transformative, creative content. It’s about making something new. In essence, it’s fiction.

TJLC is about analyzing evidence that’s already there. It’s nonfiction.

Ms. Paskin frequently blurs the lines between the two and mourns TJLC for not having the same level of creativity. She explains, for example, that fandom reads into tiny elements of a show to create a transformative space. But TJLC is not transformative. That’s Johnlock.

Neither is TJLC based on wanting the show to “bend to [our] desires”—i.e., Johnlock shippers projecting wishful thinking onto the show. I’m happy to serve as a counterexample for that! I actually didn’t ship Johnlock at all before discovering TJLC. Rather, I found the theories plausible and loved the idea that a show centered around deduction and analysis could also be the subject of deduction and analysis.

Of course, people who already ship Johnlock are more likely to be attracted to TJLC. But the basis of TJLC is not to “see in the story that you have, the story that you want” (46:40)—that’s shipping—but to analyze the story you already have.

I cannot stress this enough: TJLC is analysis, NOT shipping.

TJLC and the “Great Game”

As the podcast explains, TJLCers aren’t the first analyze Sherlock Holmes. Fans of the originals have been analyzing the stories since the 1880s. These early theorists actually gave the name to two kinds of fan analysis: Watsonian and Doylist.

Watsonian fans played the “Great Game,” treating the stories like a real world. Doyle didn’t exist, so every detail had to be explained in-universe rather than attributed to author techniques or error. They’re closer to your modern shippers, creating headcanons to fill in gaps.

Doylist fans acknowledged that (no duh) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a real person, and therefore analyzed the stories as works of literature. They are essentially literary analysts and critics, the kind that wind up on JSTOR.

TJLCers are Doylists. Obviously, someone made the show. That means we analyze character arcs, cinematographic techniques, and rhetorical devices in the dialogue like a researcher in film studies or literature would.

Ms. Paskin warns that in the Watsonian Great Game, people kept “tongues planted firmly in cheek; TJLCers, not so much.” And yet, that’s the point! You wouldn’t expect a literary analyst to go “lol maybe The Great Gatsby criticizes society but like who knows” any more than you’d want Watsonians to really believe that because John Watson’s wife called him James, his middle name is Hamish (Scottish for James) rather than acknowledging that Doyle just forgot. A ridiculous premise entails a humorous approach. A reasonable premise entails a rational one.

TJLC isn’t quite the same as highbrow analysis, however, for three reasons:

First, we use our analyses to speculate about the future of the show. We don’t have the privilege of analyzing a complete work. In that sense, the closest analogy I can think of is that of political analysts: examining what’s already been said and done to predict what will happen next.

Second, we evolved from a fandom space. That means that the barrier between TJLC and Johnlock, between nonfiction analysis and creative fiction, is never as solid as it would be in academia. Furthermore, a significant number of TJLC meta writers also engage in fictional fanworks, making it more difficult to distinguish where hard analysis ends and transformative work begins. I’ll go into some of the nuances of meta in a bit.

Third, the people in TJLC are generally queer women and often young. And we can’t discuss biases against fandom and TJLC without acknowledging sexism and homophobia. When a film critic writes a theory, it’s deep; when we do, it’s ludicrous. Paradise Lost is fanfiction just as much as AO3, but only the former is treated as legitimate literature. Theories about straight couples are plausible; ones about queer ones are suddenly delusional or fetishization. Adult fanboys are mature content creators; fangirls are hysterical.

Conversations about the implicit biases in media depictions of fandom aren’t my focus here. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to bear in mind that highbrow criticisms of fandom that focus only on its ill effects and ignore the complexity, depth, community bonding, and social change that fandom (analytical and transformative) creates often denigrate fans as immature and delusional without considering whether that accurately represents even a significant minority of a fandom. It’s a bias that we should all keep in check.

As progressive as Ms. Paskin may be, the podcast also falls into this trap. In particular, she emphasizes sensationalist depictions of TJLC theories—highlighting far-fetched theories and glossing over deeper points—and the contemptible actions of very few TJLCers while glossing over the far more plausible mainstream theories and kindness of nearly all TJLCers. As a result, we naturally look hysterical and delusional.

So let’s tackle each of those issues: TJLC as a theory and the behavior of the TJLC community.

TJLC as a Theory

If you don’t support TJLC, I’m not asking you to be convinced by a few paragraphs. The aim here is simply to explain why TJLC is plausible.

Ms. Paskin asserts that (1) TJLC is completely unsupported by the original Sherlock Holmes stories, (2) that romantic coding in the show is simply “a knowing wink,” and that (3) TJLC “is based on an unfalsifiable premise: that the creators are lying to you.” In fact:

1. TJLC is supported by the original stories.

The Sherlock Holmes canon contains significant, documented evidence of queer coding similar to other works of the same time period. It’s also reasonable to theorize, based on biographical data, that Doyle himself was bisexual.

The extent to which the stories were deliberately coded is a matter of debate. Yet Ms. Paskin simply asserts that “Conan Doyle wasn’t trying to create a homosexual subtext when he wrote the characters, but he did write a deep and committed friendship.” As @one-thousand-splendid-stars put it:

How on earth can anyone possibly know if the homoeroticism was intentional or not, when ACD could’ve been persecuted for admitting it, or making it more obvious?

Ms. Paskin’s assertion, which does not acknowledge any evidence to the contrary, again conflates Johnlock shippers with TJLCers. Johnlock is about transformative fiction; TJLC is about nonfiction analysis.

Ms. Paskin also suggests that TJLCers are “queering” the text, except that queering generally implies a queer theory approach to something that wasn’t queer to begin with. Our whole objective is to reveal that the text was originally queer.

2. The basis for TJLC is the show itself.

Ms. Paskin supposes that TJLC is “is based on an unfalsifiable premise: that the creators are lying to you.”

But TJLC isn’t based on anything the creators have said. It’s based on analysis of the show itself.

There’s a whole lot of analysis; good summaries are here and here. Essentially, we argue that given the level of coding on the show, the most probable outcome is that there is deliberate subtext meant to foreshadow that John and Sherlock will become a couple. Elements like Sherlock being indifferent to women, yet “romantic entanglement would complete [him] as a human being” suggest that the subtext isn’t just a “knowing wink,” as Ms. Paskin asserts: it would be poor writing (not to mention queerbaiting) to complete such a setup and not follow through.

3. The creators

Ms. Paskin finds it alarming that TJLCers believe Moffat and Gatiss are deliberately lying when they say that Johnlock will not become canon.

And normally, I would agree! Except that Moffat and Gatiss have a long history of lying through their teeth about plot developments. For example, they vehemently repeated that The Abominable Bride would be a stand-alone episode completely independent of the show, but it turned out to be a drugged Sherlock’s theorizing about Moriarty’s plan. And before Series 4, they said that Mary would become a long-running character, then killed her off in the next episode.

So it’s not a stretch to think that they could be lying about one more thing, particularly when TJLC relies on independent evidence from the show itself.

In fact, Paskin argues that TJLCers, like Watsonians playing the Great Game, base their theories on a “contradiction”: “On the one hand the author might as well not exist, but then on the other hand, this person who doesn’t exist has made this perfectly explicable logical thing.”

Except that unlike Watsonians, we do acknowledge that the creators exist. We analyze the show as a work of fiction, with narrative techniques that can be analyzed just as much as plot elements.

Furthermore, the fact that the creators lie constantly doesn’t mean we don’t pay attention to what they do say. They have large incentives to keep upcoming plot twists secret, but that doesn’t mean they can’t reveal their motivations and influences. A lawyer questioning a lying witness can still gain information from what they do say.

Take a closer example: Say I went back to 1897 and asked Bram Stoker if there’s queer coding in Dracula (which is now well-documented). He would probably respond along the lines of “I’m not a sodomite; also, what???” But he might wax poetic about homoeroticism in Walt Whitman’s poetry and mention that his charismatic but domineering idol Henry Irving was the basis for Dracula.

So no, there’s no contradiction between analyzing the show and the creators’ influences while still believing that they don’t want to reveal upcoming plot points.

The Behavior of the TJLC Community

How Theories Work

Ms. Paskin rattles off several far-fetched TJLC theories that make TJLC as a whole sound ridiculous. Furthermore, she implies that TJLC is a monolithic community with a “dogmatic” belief in all of these theories, such that criticism and discussion don’t exist.

Guess what? I’m in TJLC, and I don’t believe half the theories she mentioned. That’s because TJLC is much less uniform than its detractors would believe. Furthermore, the general level of confidence that people have in a given piece of evidence depends on its strength. In other words, the more evidence for something, the more likely that TJLCers agree on it. The less evidence for something, the more likely we are to treat it as just something cool that could turn out to be coincidence.

We can divide TJLC meta into five basic categories:

1. Foundational meta

These are well-respected analysis of character arcs, dialogue, and other clearly deliberate plot elements such as this one. Pretty much all TJLCers agree with them. These are your best-researched, most widespread meta; they form the true basis of TJLC. Here are some examples. And yet they hardly show up in Ms. Paskin’s discussion, because they don’t make TJLC sound too far-fetched.

2. Circumstantial evidence

TJLC can stand on foundational meta alone, but there’s also secondary evidence to support it. This includes the “drinks code” (the theory that beverages serve as symbols on the show, supported by subsequent creator remarks) and similar theories that can’t hold up TJLC by themselves, but do provide extra evidence and add nuance to theories about character arcs and plot development.

3. Accessory meta

These are analyses of elements that could well turn out to be coincidence due to scarce evidence. If true, they allow us to establish character arcs in greater depth, but it’s perfectly possible that any given one is coincidence. These include the theories on wallpaper and lighting that Ms. Paskin reports as though they were the pillars of TJLC. They’re theories that I read and go, “Hm, interesting; maybe.”

4. Spinoff theories

These are theories that deal with specific paths the show might take. They generally have groups of supporters within TJLC, but each spinoff theory usually only has a smaller group of supporters within the larger TJLC community.

It’s important to note that many major theories don’t have to do with Johnlock at all. Take M-theory, the idea that Mycroft and other characters are under Moriarty’s thumb, or EMP, the idea that some episodes take place in Sherlock’s mind palace. If, as Ms. Paskin asserts, TJLC is about wishful thinking and wanting Johnlock to be canon, what would be the point of these? Furthermore, if TJLC is monolithic and dogmatic, why do we constantly discuss and critique these theories in constructive discussions? I had to make a whole table of theories after Series 4 because everyone’s opinion was so different!

5. Crack theories

These are usually clearly labeled “crack” and are never meant to be taken seriously. Again, TJLC contains a lot of humor. So sometimes, we goof off and write theories like this one that are clearly ridiculous, usually with an exaggerated conspiratorial tone, to have fun in the spirit of the Watsonians. Unfortunately, some people outside TJLC think we actually take these theories seriously and accordingly treat us as crazy people. Guys… Ctrl+F “crack” first.

To summarize:

TJLC contains theories with varying levels of evidence that are treated with corresponding levels of seriousness.

TJLCers are far from dogmatic. Different people have different views, and that’s OK.

TJLC is founded on criticism and discussion (here’s an example). By disagreeing on meta, we gain better insight into the characters.

Addressing Ms. Paskin: The theories she dwells on are EMP and M-Theory (40:04 and 10:37), both spinoff theories. They do not form part of the main body of TJLC, and fans are far more flexible about that stuff because it’s not nearly as firmly supported as foundational meta. She cites a clip analyzing Mycroft’s theme in the score, which is accessory meta that could well turn out to be coincidence. (By the way, I have serious doubts about all three of these theories. And TJLC is perfectly accepting of that!)

She also talks about loudest-subtext’s meta on the 2009 BBC queer representation report, whose objective was to demonstrate that it was possible for TJLC to happen from a production/permission standpoint, not to prove that TJLC was happening on the show. In that sense, it’s closer to circumstantial evidence.

She also fears that TJLCers “try to find order and logic and reason in every detail.” Again, sane TJLCers treat less solid evidence as less likely to be true. Caveat: Some TJLCers do go overboard. But they do not represent the overwhelming, sane majority.

TJLC Culture

Confidence and Criticism

Ms. Paskin finds it alarming that many TJLCers regarded TJLC as far more well-supported, even certain, than “an opinion or a possibility” or “just one ship among many” (14:50).

And yet, in an academic setting, isn’t it normal to think that the theory you researched and support is correct? Again, we hit the boundary in how the public perceives highbrow research and fan analysis. TJLC was not “just one ship among many” because (again) it’s not a ship, it’s a theory based on research and analysis. So naturally, we had a higher level of confidence in TJLC becoming canon than a shipper with an unsupported ship would.

Ms. Paskin implies that this confidence led directly to TJLC being unable to take criticism and therefore hating on people outside the community, since “denying [TJLC] was denying the truth” (14:55). But—first off—confidence does not directly lead to thin skins. Again, we debate everything. If good meta writers couldn’t change their minds given new evidence, TJLC wouldn’t exist.

Yet even when some TJLCers were more certain about TJLC than could be reasonably expected, the overwhelming majority was perfectly nice. We can, in fact, agree to disagree with others.

But this brings us to the most painful part of the podcast:

Fandom Toxicity: The Broad Picture

The podcast, having painted TJLCers as delusional, dogmatic crusaders, goes on to argue that TJLCers hated on people outside TJLC to an unusual and deplorable amount, such that TJLC’s main effect was to increase toxicity in the Sherlock fandom.

For starters: Yes, a few TJLCers did fit this despicable mold. I universally condemn people who went out of their way to attack people outside or inside the community. They are an insult to TJLC’s values of inclusivity and rational debate. And my heart goes out to the people who suffered as a result of them.

But guess what? All the TJLCers I’ve talked to agree with that. Because the fact is that awful people form an incredibly small minority of TJLC.

Most of the TJLCers who listened to the podcast found this to be the most insulting and painful part. They’ve reiterated time and again that the community as a whole is not a toxic place. @artfulkindoforder put it best:

So many TJLCers were never mean to anybody.

You can think we’re unrealistic, immature, delusional—fine. But at the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of us stuck to our circles of courteous people and just had fun.

In broad terms, there were several inconsistencies between the podcast and what I found. First, the podcast attributes toxic behavior to large swathes of TJLC, when in fact it tended to be a small group of repeat offenders, many of whom would attack people inside TJLC as well as outside it. loudest-subtext, a longtime TJLC blogger, discussed this here.

Secondly, the podcast makes absolutely no mention of the hate that TJLCers—often perfectly civil ones—received, which makes it easier to paint TJLC as engaging in vicious, one-sided attack. TJLCers, especially at the beginning, received shocking quantities of anonymous hate. Like attacks on people outside TJLC, I’m sure that the attacks on TJLCers were also due to a tiny minority of toxic people. But to gloss over them entirely is to paint an incomplete and biased picture. As @one-thousand-splendid-stars put it:

I’m not going to pretend that there was never nasty behavior from TJLC, but I’m also not going to say her description of us was accurate. She presented the TJLC fandom like it was a toxic cult.... She talked about fandom bullying as though we were never on the receiving end of it, and weren’t ever ridiculed, or called stupid, or sent anon hate, or harassed. To imply that tjlcers were only dishing it out is just flat out inaccurate.

The anonymous attacks on TJLCers had several results. First, TJLC developed a culture that stresses avoiding confrontation with outsiders: leaving other shippers be, unless they seek out TJLC posts. For example, some of the first things I learned were to misspell other ship names on TJLC posts so they wouldn’t show up when people wanted content promoting that ship, and not to reblog posts from outside shippers’ blogs with TJLC-related comments. Far from attacking outsiders, the whole point is to let people who disagree with TJLC do their own thing.

Second, the vast majority of TJLCers despise anon hate because they receive it unusually often. I’ve never seen a community with so many posts reminding people never to resort to it because they’ve seen how it hurt TJLC bloggers.

Third, a handful of TJLCers who got repeated and unwarranted hate did get more combative. But when looking at their later behavior, it’s important to understand that many of them became less willing to compromise on TJLC because they’d seen toxic fans remain unwilling to compromise or debate with them. And most of the conflicts I’ve seen as a result came from anti-TJLC people coming specifically to comment on TJLCers’ posts, not from TJLCers going out of their way to fight non-TJLCers.

Specific Incidents

I didn’t want to rely on secondhand knowledge about hate to write this response. In the spirit of TJLC, I wanted to be fair and impartial. That meant looking through the blogs of people who had received hate inside and outside TJLC. So here’s what I found out:

First off, it was awful. I was looking 4-5 years back to find the worst instances of hate in the community, and I wasn’t used to it because the bloggers I interact with are universally inclusive and civil.

Ms. Paskin discussed three specific incidents on the podcast: top/bottomlock, the 2015 221BCon incident, and post-Series 4 anger.

When top/bottomlock came up, I was baffled. First off, that discussion is ancient. It’s so old that by the time I joined TJLC in late 2015, it had practically died out. More importantly, a “debate” that Ms. Paskin describes as “very specific and dogmatic fanon” was—as I’ve understood—never taken seriously. Again, TJLC is not a very serious place, and people outside it are bound to misinterpret inside jokes. 99% of TJLCers saw top/bottomlock as nothing more than fodder for crack theories, and yet Ms. Paskin’s sources on this issue—none of whom are actually in TJLC—describe it as a debate of monumental importance.

The 2015 221BCon, on the other hand, was a serious conflict. As far as I can tell, people like Emma genuinely suffered, and the fact that neutral fans received anonymous attacks is shameful. But the results of this stretched to TJLCers as well as people outside TJLC, something that the podcast conveniently neglects to mention.

The end of Series 4 disappointed people throughout the Sherlock fandom. I’m not talking about Johnlock: plot inconsistencies, weird characterizations, and plot pulled from a horror movie resulted in its lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating ever. TJLC is too small to have that kind of clout, so to say that TJLCers were the only ones disappointed is clearly inaccurate.

Ms. Paskin claims that Series 4 “seemed straighter, not gayer, than before” and yet John telling Sherlock that “romantic entanglement would complete you as a human being” is uh…pretty gay. For many TJLCers, the problem wasn’t that there wasn’t Johnlock; the problem was that the quality of the show seemed to have drastically decreased.

TJLC immediately split into two groups. One group left TJLC, believing that Moffat and Gatiss had been queerbaiting. Many of them began constructive anti-queerbaiting discussions. Unfortunately, a few took their anger out on the creators.

The resulting hateful messages do not represent the views of the vast majority of former TJLCers, let alone people who still support TJLC. The fact that Amanda Abbington received a death threat is disgusting; and yet in TJLC, she’s always been regarded as a sort of beloved “fandom aunt”. In addition, Ms. Paskin cites an article that claimed that fans “dampened [Martin Freeman’s] enthusiasm.” But that interview has already been revealed as a clickbait-seeking misinterpretation—by Freeman himself.

The second group—those remaining in TJLC—were a bit desperate, and I’ll be the first to admit that several theories with scanty factual basis became more popular then than they would have in calmer times. The Apple Tree Yard theory, for instance, is clearly ridiculous in retrospect. But even I was willing to consider it. (Not my finest moment.) As a side note, however: the far-fetched “China cancelled Johnlock” theory she mentioned is by someone who’s not only outside TJLC, but also notorious for hating it

But regardless of the quality of these theories, 99% of the remaining TJLCers were certainly not hating on people—because who was there to hate, if there was no queerbaiting?

Ultimately, the podcast’s descriptions of hate related to TJLC are one-sided, distorted, and do not reflect the conduct of the overwhelming majority of TJLCers.

Podcast-Specific Errors

There’s a reason why the podcast comes off so different from reality: its research is seriously flawed.

For a podcast about TJLC, Ms. Paskin interviewed a whopping one (1) actual current TJLCer, whom she apparently interviewed after building much of her argument. Every other interviewee was outside TJLC and specifically disliked it. That will hardly make for an unbiased final product.

As a result, she culminates with several remarks that are genuinely insulting. She likens TJLC to “any other standard conspiracy where you have a Judgment Day,” suggesting that we’re irrational and fanatical. She summarizes the entire community as “people being cruel to one another because they disagree about how a fictional TV relationship should turn out,” combining every misconception of (1) TJLC being a ship instead of hard analysis, (2) blaming every TJLCers for the actions of very few, (3) TJLC being a silly fan thing rather than a starting point for meaningful research into queer representation and literary analysis, and (4) ignoring TJLC’s vast contributions to TJLCers’ lives while overemphasizing those who were harmed by it. Both remarks are in keeping with standard media portrayals of fans as irrational and immature. I expected better of her.

Ms. Paskin says that she “had a dream about…digging deeper, talking to more people, ones who could perfectly explain the allure of TJLC to me.” She had the opportunity to interview more actual TJLCers, but didn’t take it.

But the offer still stands! Come talk to us! Learn about what we’re actually like! Criticize our theories, if you think we’re dogmatic. Ask us what we think of TJLC, if you think it ruined our lives. Our ask boxes are wide open!

What the Podcast Left Out

Swimming in descriptions of TJLC as a source of hatred, the podcast glosses over one tiny little detail: that TJLC genuinely improved the lives of the vast majority of TJLCers.

I came out because of TJLC. I learned how to analyze literature because of TJLC. I discovered new parts of history and the queer people who have always been part of it. I found a community of curious, passionate, funny, and kind people who I could talk to.

And I’m just one person. I know people who found lifelong friends because of TJLC, wrote books because of it, became students of gender and sexuality studies, found a community of support when they had mental health, financial, or other personal problems, and had a blast theorizing about the possibility of landmark LGBT representation. Heck, Rebekah of TJLC Explained filmed hours of people talking about how much the community meant to them. And I even know former TJLCers who, though disappointed with the show, still appreciate how much it taught them about queer theory, queer history, and themselves.

Evaluating TJLC as a whole, it’s not far-fetched, dogmatic, or primarily a source of “darkness.” It’s a legitimate theory, supported by debate and rational analysis, that improved the lives of far more people than it ever hurt.

You’ve read this. Now what?

If you’re in the media:

This Slate podcast is now the #1 result when I search The Johnlock Conspiracy. Thousands of kind and logical voices on Tumblr and other sites are immediately silenced by well-known publications. So yeah, I care what the media thinks. Few voices have widespread effects. I want people trying to find out about TJLC to get a well-researched, less biased view of it.

Please, take your research seriously when discussing fandom. Interview actual members of the community. Be aware of the public bias of fans as unworthy of serious attention and unable to construct rational, legitimate arguments. And fight against it.

If you’re inside TJLC:

Researching for this meant a trip into the darkest parts of TJLC. We need to acknowledge that not everyone in this community is nice to everyone all of the time, and this resulted in incidents that seriously hurt some people. Remaining civil, especially when faced with disagreement or outright malice, means we keep this community friendly for everyone.

If you’re outside TJLC:

Thank you for taking the time to learn about a topic from someone you don’t necessarily agree with. We need more of your open-mindedness in the world.

If you completely disagree with me, please don’t send me anon hate. Constructive criticism is cool. Anon hate is lame. Be cool. But I welcome questions, comments, and constructive debate. My ask box is always open.

Thank you for reading.

-soe

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@thesaltofcarthage @devoursjohnlock @waitedforgarridebs @one-thousand-splendid-stars @garkgatiss @shinka @witch-lock @jenna221b @sarahthecoat @inevitably-johnlocked @the-7-percent-solution @artfulkindoforder @warmth-and-constancy@marcespot@whtboutdeductions@tjlcisthenewsexy @bluebluenova @heimishtheidealhusband @tendergingergirl @sagestreet @ebaeschnbliah @221bloodnun @marcelock @watsonshoneybee @victorianfantasywatson

#tjlc #slate #johnlock #sherlock #bbc sherlock #soe #slate podcast

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zebu-official · 2 years

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10 Things To Keep In Mind If You Want To Become A Successful Trader

When you are new to trading and are Googling what it takes to be a successful trader, you’ll quickly become familiar with terms like "plan your trade; trade your plan" and "minimise your losses." And the amount of information available can soon overwhelm you. So, here is a simple, 10-step Gyan about what you should do in the first year of trading.

Each of the guidelines below is vital, but their combined impact is powerful. Remembering these can considerably boost your chances of market success. But before we get into the article, make sure to always choose an online trading platform that offers either lowest brokerage or zero brokerage intraday trading.

Never trade without a plan

A trading plan details a trader's entrance, exit, and money management criteria for each buy. With today's technology, it is easy to test a trading strategy before risking actual money. Backtesting allows you to test your trade concept using past data to see if it works. Once a plan is devised and backtested well, it can be employed in real trading. Your job is to simply keep to the strategy. Trading outside the trading plan, even if profitable, is considered a bad strategy.

Trading As A Business

Trading should be treated as a full-time or part-time business, not a pastime or profession. As a hobby, there is no genuine commitment to learning. A job without a regular income might be frustrating. Trading is a business with costs, losses, taxes, stress, and risk. As a trader, you are a tiny business owner who must research and plan to optimise your profits.

Embrace Technology

Trading is a cutthroat sport. It's safe to presume that the most successful traders use all available technology. Traders can use charting software to view and analyse markets in limitless ways. Using a good and trusted online trading platform with the lowest brokerage or zero brokerage for intraday trading is another important strategy. Backtesting an idea with historical data saves money. We can track trading from anywhere with our smartphones. A high-speed internet connection, for example, can considerably improve trading performance. Technology and keeping up with new products may be exciting and lucrative in trade.

Preserve your trading capital

Saving money for a trading account requires time and effort. It's considerably harder when you have to do it again. Notably, safeguarding your trading capital does not imply never losing a trade. Every trader loses. Protecting capital means not taking needless risks and protecting your trading enterprise.

Become a Student Of The Market

Consider your career in trading as lifelong learning. Traders must keep learning every day. Remember that learning about markets and their nuances is a lifetime endeavour. Studying hard helps traders grasp economic information and help them develop an edge over the others. The ability to focus and observe allows traders to refine their skills. Politics, news, economics, and even the weather affect the markets. The market is fluid. Traders are better prepared for the future if they understand the past and current markets.

Don’t Trade More Than You Can Afford to Lose

First, be sure that all of the funds in your trading account are genuinely expendable. If it isn't, you should save. Money in a trading account should not be used to pay for college or the mortgage. It is dangerous to use the money for trading that is earmarked for critical expenses. Money loss is bad enough. It's even worse if it's capital that should never have been risked.

Develop a Fact-Based Methodology

Developing a strong trading strategy takes time. It's easy to fall for the online trading scams that promise trading strategies "so easy it's like printing money." Facts, not emotions or hope, should guide the creation of a trading strategy. In general, traders who are not in a hurry to learn can sort through the internet's vast amount of data more easily. Suppose you wanted to change careers, but you needed to spend a year or two in college to be qualified to apply for a job in the new field. Learning to trade takes at least the same amount of effort and research.

Use a Stop Loss

As a trader, you set your own stop loss. The stop loss might be in rupees or percentages, but it restricts the trader's risk. Using a stop-loss reduces tension when trading since we know we will only lose a certain amount. Even if a trade is profitable, not having a stop loss is undesirable. The trading plan's guidelines allow for lost trades to be exited with a stop loss. The aim is to profit from every trade, but that is unrealistic. Using a precautionary stop-loss reduces losses.

Know When to Sell

Inefficient trading plans and ineffective traders are the worst combinations for a trading career. If you feel like your trading strategy is not responding well over a period of time, then take the time out to re-assess and develop your strategy again. An unsuccessful trading plan is an issue that has to be solved. It is not the end of a trading career. An ineffective trader is one who sets a trading plan but is unable to follow it. External stress, bad habits, and inactivity all contribute to this issue. Traders who are not in top trading condition may consider resting. After resolving any issues, the trader can resume operations.

Remain Focused on Trading

Trade with a big picture in mind. It's normal to lose trades; it's part of trading. A winning deal is only one step towards a successful business. And the cumulative profits matter. A trader's performance improves once they accept wins and losses as part of the business. That is not to imply we cannot be happy about a successful deal, but we must also be aware of the possibility of a loss. Setting realistic goals is important for a trading career. Your company should make a reasonable profit in a reasonable time. Expecting to be a multi-millionaire by Tuesday is a recipe for disaster.

Conclusion

Understanding the value of each trading rule and how they interact can help a trader build a profitable trading firm. Traders who follow these criteria with discipline and patience might boost their chances of success in a highly competitive market.

#lowest brokerage zero brokerage intraday trading online trading platform

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indulgentia · 3 years

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☣ 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒍𝒚 on » @𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒆 :

Perhaps it was the tenderness, the rare sight of comfort from this man that shattered the shell she frosted over her person. How rare and deprived she was --- who has always stood alone in her grief and fear to be given a shoulder to rest on.

There was a quiver to the suppleness of lips, how misty her gaze became when she looked upon his beautiful complexion. Breathtaking as always and just as alluring. However enticing she could not bring herself to nestle beside his side and rest her crown onto his shoulder. No, she froze like a lake on a winter night. Turned on her heels, her dress swaying along her as she sauntered away from the youth.

Words would have hung with a heaviness so she left as silent as she came.

There shouldn’t be any reason for an actual SURPRISE. At that point, he himself thought he should be used to such reactions and mannerisms, subtle yet perspicuous, apparent yet UNDECIPHERABLE . . . But sometimes it could be proven to be hard ( almost IMPOSSIBLE for this grump, by the way ) to control the CARELESS DRIVE to seek for factual answers that could satisfy such a practical and ( dull ) STRAIGHT-FORWARD mind.

Phoenix eyes seem to cut through the INVISIBLE WALL erected between the two with a sharp gaze, making no secret of their inquisitive intent. And still, it can also be proven to be a bit difficult for them not to waste a little time trying to analyse, to seek in each of those BEAUTIFUL FEATURES for any answer to what was left UNSAID. Perhaps he was finally learning to understand certain nuances, but not as much as memorizing every fascinating detail, every tiny part of the topography of that ALLURING VISAGE.

However, his trance seemed to come to an end as the noise of the soles reached his ears, barely taking from him any sudden reaction . . . From his FACE at least, for his body seemed to be moved by a THOUGHTLESS IMPULSE: one of his arms dared to reach out for the others, allowing the calloused fingers to slide along her gracious sleeve, calmly wrapping around the thin wrist, not quite STOPPING her steps but instead just allowing him to walk beside her figure in equal RESPECTFUL SILENCE.

#﹙⠀❖⠀⋮⠀ꜱᴜʙᴊᴇᴄᴛ：YU⠀»⠀ᴅᴇᴠᴇʟᴏᴩᴍᴇɴᴛ：INTERACTIONS ！ ﹚#﹙⠀☣⠀⋮⠀ʙʟᴏɢʜᴀᴢᴀʀᴅ ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ：ENG ！ ﹚#﹙⠀agalere ！ ﹚#agalere #﹙⠀ agalere ⠀»⠀ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ：KUDO HINA ！ ﹚#( I'm always like . . . CAN'T YOU GUYS BE A LITTLE LESS STUBBORN GRRRR )#( EXCUSE ME I NEED A MOMENT )#( GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR )

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bbqs-paintbrush · 7 years

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Why is no one talking about this?

(Note: this is a long-winded rant(?) about a genuinely minuscule thing that really is just an excuse to nerd out, so if you’re into that, too, keep reading! Otherwise, you might not be that impressed. )

Yup, still on the My Hero Academia bender. Followers may have picked up my obsession over this purple-haired character named Shinsou in particular, but let me tell you that this character has less than some 20 pages in the manga and less than 20 minutes of screen time in the anime and is already more nuanced, complex, and emotionally compelling in that time than most of the characters in the protagonist’s immediate circle.

There are character analyses out there that do a great job of explaining all those points (this is one of the best I’ve seen and you should probably read that first and come back: http://manipulatorshinsou.tumblr.com/post/166609989279/the-appeal-of-shinsou-hitoshi-analyses), but I want to point out a tiny detail that I feel like almost no one has explicitly brought up that says something so enormous about his character arc that, though redundant at this point, is such a small but lovingly crafted detail that it really encapsulates one of my favorite things about this series - subtle emotional storytelling.

Now, there’s mild spoilers for all this, but you REALLY should go watch/read this series at some point anyway. However, I wanted to point something out that’s unique to the anime adaptation. Though some details often get left out in the adaptation process or are edited to fit film storyboarding rather than comics, film has a distinct advantage over manga in two areas - color and space.

Now, the entire point of Shinsou and Midoriya’s duel in the Tournament Arc was to draw multiple direct parallels to each character and highlight the major and really only significant difference between them - luck. In the end, both must fight an uphill battle above and beyond what would be expected of them to achieve their dream; but unlike Midoriya, Shinsou loses and his dreams are dashed. He’s no longer just disillusioned with the popularity games of hero society - he becomes discouraged and disheartened completely from having every last effort and every last plan easily pushed aside from someone more fortunate than him despite his efforts to appear confident and intimidating and to put his rivals off-balance.

Midoriya knows exactly the kind of struggle Shinsou has been through, and half the battle was to keep himself from trying to comfort Shinsou, not just because of All Might’s secret, but because they were rivals fighting for their own individual dreams, and attempting to help him would have resulted in Midoriya losing the match and the tournament. He also knew that after the fact there was nothing he could have said to Shinsou that would have given him comfort. Despite every amazing effort, he would once again be put down - the loser who just has to deal with the cruel reality of life.

Okay, nerd analysis time!

MHA is amazing at being emotionally compelling. They hit just the right line of performance, framing, and music to make you feel exactly what it wants you to. The example in particular I want to bring up is this scene (that legit put my husband -who is very much a “manly man”- in tears when he watched it).

At this point, Midoriya is told by the person he looks up to and admires more than literally anyone else in the world that regardless of his past inability to even come close to reaching his goals he still had the power to become a hero because of something beside and far beyond just having a powerful quirk.

And Midoriya is broken and in tears.

The cherry blossoms are a detail unique to the anime regarding this scene (Chapter 1) and really serve to add to the drama of it - particularly because of the saturation of color and the cultural significance of the Japanese sakura: the beauty and fleeting nature of youth, the coming of spring, and renewal. The Japanese consider the falling of the cherry blossoms to be a reminder that “it’s time to pay attention to what’s happening right now!”

Midoriya has finally experienced his own blossoming as a hero. Based on the scene in this episode and the direction the petals are falling insinuate that this feeling is all around him. His hero is standing over him and telling him that he can become just as great as he is. Everything at that moment has come together to recognize his dream.

Fast forward to Shinsou’s flashback at the tournament:

Absolutely the cherry blossoms are there, and it’s even clear in the manga that there are cherry blossoms outside the class window. However, what happens in this scene is that Shinsou recollects a point in his life that he considers to be the epitome of his struggle.

“Whoa, Shinsou! That’s a really cool quirk! Just don’t use it on us and make us your slaves, okay?”

“Heh, everybody says that...”

And the scene goes grey. This should have been his chance to break out and come closer to his dream, but that wasn’t the case. No color, no focus- just a blurred, painful memory to encapsulate the seemingly inescapable feeling of defeat as he lays on the ground, out of bounds, so close but yet so far once again...

And then-

~~~~~~

“You’re amazing, Shinsou!”

“You’re the shining star of General Studies!”

“His quirk is so powerful and can be so useful in capturing villains!”

“What a waste that he’s stuck in General Studies!”

“I wish I had a quirk like that!”

No “what a scary quirk” or “I hope he doesn’t use it for his own purposes”! Just:

“Look at what an amazing hero he could be!”

Did you see it?

There isn’t a cherry tree for miles around this arena. Everything for so long has been against him from the start. The fire inside him has all but been snuffed out yet again. This should be like every other disappointment he’s had to endure, and yet somehow it isn’t - against every odd.

He may have lost. He may have fallen short, but his real goal has been realized. He’s been seen. It’s time to pay attention to what’s happening right now. Shinsou has blossomed.

It’s not as flashy or spectacular as Midoriya’s, but it’s just as significant. In fact, it’s exactly the same, regardless of how big it shows on the outside - Midoriya and Shinsou are the same, and they’ve both made it.

Again, this detail of the single petal falling isn’t in the manga (Chapter 34), but it was even more emotionally impactful to me than Midoriya’s awakening because I immediately saw the parallel. I feel that many did, too; but the choice to have the one fall into frame hit me where it counted. It almost wasn’t there, but it was!

I’m done rambling at this point, but really if you haven’t at least checked out this series yet, I highly encourage you to - even if you don’t like normally like anime! Most of the elements that tend to put me off of a lot of popular series are minimal or non-existent, and though it still uses major tropes in the shonen genre it has a tendency to go above and beyond philosophically, intellectually, and emotionally than it has to. It’s not a good anime. It’s a well-written and impactful story!

#bnha #mha #bnha shinsou #hitoshi shinsou #hitoshi shinso #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku midoriya #midoriya izuku

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owl-eyed-woman · 7 years

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Attack on Titan Season 2 Episode 36 Analysis Part 5: An Ode to the Ensemble

AOT has always been a type of ensemble show, incorporating dozens of characters, several competing factions and so many weird sounding names that you can’t possibly remember all of them. This large and varied cast is crucial for creating a sprawling, complex world filled with countless people who, alongside our main characters, are struggling with the same, trying circumstances. At least, that’s the intended effect.

The downside of having such a large cast, however, is that you actually need to develop them or they might start to seem like extraneous titan fodder. AOT has definitely fallen into this trap before.

To be fair, fixing this issue is not as simple as just developing every single character into multi-dimensional human beings; this would just bog the story down with superfluous detail. Still, far too often, interactions with this expansive side cast have used them as cameos not characters, relying on weird quirks to differentiate rather than authentic characterisation.

Thankfully, this season has clearly recognised this shortcoming and started to shine a light on thus far overlooked and underutilised characters. We’ve moved away from Eren, Armin and Mikasa and have instead focused on the secondary characters in the cadet corps. With this shift, AOT has truly begun to excel as an ensemble piece.

In the context of this season-wide reframing and refocusing, however, this episode is actually a bit of an outlier as it re-centres a lot of the action around Mikasa and Armin. But fear not, the side-characters have their time in the spotlight!

Obviously, a lot has happened in this season which, may I remind you, has spanned less than two days. There’s a lot to process and with barely a second to rest, everyone is undoubtedly struggling physically, mentally and emotionally. With this in mind, this episode grants our precious side characters a chance to finally address the most shocking twist of the season: Reiner and Bertholdt’s betrayal.

AOT has spent several episodes examining (and re-examining and then re-examining again) the various nuances of Eren’s emotional fallout from this betrayal, but the questions still remains: what about the other cadets? They, like Eren, trusted Bertholdt and Reiner unconditionally, counting them as comrade and companion through thick and thin. It only follows that their emotional fallout is just as cutting and devastating as Eren’s.

So as Sasha, Jean, Connie, Armin and Mikasa converge atop Reiner, surrounding the encased Bertholdt, it becomes a type of twisted family reunion, where past resentments and remembrances are dredged up and brought out into the open. How is everyone holding up?

Well, unsurprisingly, they’re confused and hurt! Who’da thunk? Each of them express this pain differently, coping in their own flawed ways. Sasha is simply in a state of disbelief. Connie, my sweet, dense boy, almost seems in a state of denial that they could have lied to them for so long whilst Jean’s snarky rejoinders hide his obvious distress.

There’s a lot these characters need to express openly in order to truly start healing and moving on from this betrayal, more than can be said in this brief conversation. Jean’s words cut to the heart of the matter as he vehemently tells them that they can’t just, literally and figuratively, run away from them and the three years of friendship they shared. It’s a desperate and raw attempt to appeal to Bertholdt and Reiner’s humanity that they now fear was only a façade.

They all desperately want to understand why this has happened and find some type of explanation for their betrayal after they’ve trusted them for so long but there is no satisfactory answer. In the end, while this brief conversation does allow for some emotional catharsis, it ultimately remains one-sided, unsatisfying and futile. Reiner and Bertholdt remain unmoved.

In the scheme of this episode, this is only one brief exchange, but it still shows us the genuine effort AOT has made this season to add depth and complexity to initially flat and simple characters. But after all this welcome effort, one character still remains obscured: Bertholdt. I’ve often joked that I only know two things about Bertholdt: 1. He is quiet and 2. He is tall. But honestly, there’s a lot of truth in this ridiculous, reductive statement. Who is Bertholdt? What motivates him? Why did he commit such horrific acts as the Colossal Titan?

Despite Eren and Mikasa’s virulent insistence to the contrary, AOT has been hinting heavily that Bertholdt and Reiner are more than just two irredeemable monsters who hate all of humanity; there’s another side to their betrayal.

We know that Reiner has struggled with his crimes, splitting his personality in twain just to cope with the guilt, but Bertholdt’s position has remained mysterious throughout this entire affair. Not even his friends’ desperate pleas are able to elicit any reaction or explanation from Bertholdt.

Interestingly, it’s Mikasa’s brutally pragmatic dismissal that gets a response out of the consistently aloof Bertholdt. Unlike the other cadets, Mikasa never seemed particularly close to Bertholdt or Reiner, and now, after what they’ve done, she couldn’t give two fucks about either of them. She doesn’t care about any purported humanity or moral nuance. In fact, she actively rejects its existence and rejects its relevance. They are her enemy now and that’s all she needs to know.

It’s this blunt dismissal that challenges Bertholdt to prove his humanity, to prove that they aren’t just monsters to be vanquished. As tears stream down his face, Bertholdt finally reaches his breaking point and reveals all. It is at once heartbreaking, humanising and horrifying.

He has no delusions about what they did, no declarations of moral righteousness, no smarmy excuses; just a soul-crushing awareness of the evil, disgusting crimes that they have committed. Like Reiner, Bertholdt has been consumed by guilt and self-hatred because of their atrocious actions; he’s just better at hiding it. He knows they deserve to die for what they’ve done.

It’s honestly a relief to have explicit confirmation that they didn’t want to kill all those people. I know AOT is a story about literal monsters, but I guess I don’t want to believe that someone could happily murder so many innocents unless they were literally inhuman. Then again, maybe that’s naïve; AOT’s central government forced its citizens into a suicide mission in order to cull the population. Such atrocities are the order of the day for human society as a whole. But I digress.

Significantly, Bertholdt also admits that he sincerely cared about his comrades during his time as a soldier in the 104th cadet corps, even if it was just a reprieve from this guilt. Their years undercover weren’t just part of the job, but rather, a brief refuge from the reality of their deeds. In the end, Reiner and Bertholdt were so good at playing make-believe soldiers because they desperately wanted to believe they were just innocent soldiers, if only for a while.

It’s a potent reminder that though Eren may dismiss them as monsters, even the most despicable people are still human beings. It’s easy to completely write off people after they do evil things or betray us but if we can’t acknowledge the humanity in our enemies, we’ll never truly comprehend our own innate potential for both cruelty and kindness. We’re all complicated, we all contain multitudes and if AOT has taught us anything, we’re all capable of terrible things.

With that said, there’s only so much sympathy we can extend towards those actively trying to eradicate countless human lives. Yes, this distraught assertion of humanity and admission of guilt is genuinely moving, but Bertholdt and Reiner still made the choice to commit these crimes and stain their hands with innocent blood. I’ve been hard on Mikasa in my past analysis, but her to-the-point demand for Eren’s return is ultimately the correct response to the situation; any sympathy is pointless if they are still trying to destroy humanity.

This episode didn’t have to give so much runtime to these minor characters; it could have simply coasted on its action and gore and twists and turns. But still, in this single, tiny scene, AOT manages to do so much and is so much stronger for its inclusion. I truly appreciate this show’s continued effort to imbue its characters with complexity and humanity. This is why I’ve spent 5 whole posts analysing, or, if we’re being honest, rambling on about this single episode.

If you’re interested, I’ve linked to my other articles below expanding on other parts of this episode.

Links: Part 1: Why I Love this Show Part 2: Ymir and Christa Part 3: Mikasa, Co-dependency and Morality Part 4: Armin and Sacrifice

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devilishdewitt · 5 years

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“Real Variety Show”, April 2019

Ah, dearest darling, hello!

Missed me?)

I feel like exploring new territory, care to join me?

A new format, to be precise.

I’m gonna call this…Short’n’Sweet.

First things first, the most important part of any review I shall ever write:

~The Eternal Disclaimer~

It is hereby declared that this little nook of the world wide web shall be devoted to the praise & critique of the art of Burlesque, specifically in Russia.

Let it also be known that I am first and foremost a benevolent force, and every single criticism is documented solely for the purpose of evolution, growth and inspiration, darling.

Never forget - it is fantastic that the burlesque scene in Russia has grown so much in the last few years. Brava, ladies! As a fact and a statement, it is absolutely fabulous.

However, I volunteer to wear the heavy crown of expertise, having seen many a show in many a place, and having a keen eye for detail and a heart hungry for that wow factor.

I always come with an open heart, am quite easily entertained, and know how hard the craft is - I can overlook many a fault when there’s stage presence, charisma and that fire of passion.

Oh, and self-irony.

All is sickly without self-irony.

Now, onwards! To fabulousness!

As we’re all busy, busy bees, my darlings - and I have already pirouetted my penmanship talent in before you in quite an unapologetic way, I shall indeed keep this short’n’sweet.

Though there’s not that much sweetness in this edition…

Leelah Zharkaya & Lyalya Bezhetskaya have now ventured into the tumultuous waters of dark cabaret, creating the “Real Variety Show”.

Same team, new...concept?

Being an avid admirer of the genre, I’ve been keeping an eye on its progress in Moscow and I must say, it’s not quite as fruitful as one could hope.

The Dark Cabaret Festival did not live up to expectations - mostly because of the confusion of the producers. It seemed like only 2 out of 10 organisers actually understood what Dark Cabaret is all about.

Well, in this case it’s more like 1/10.

I keep wondering why Dark Cabaret is having such a tough time in Moscow. It would seem that we have the perfect formula for it - the layers of natural national darkness, self-irony, a plague-feast mentality…what are we lacking?

Good taste, perhaps, and the understanding of the tender, intricate nuances.

Scroll up, darling, and take a look at the poster. It does indeed convey the atmosphere quite accurately.

The venue? Tolerable.

Imagine that you walk in, make your way to the auditorium, and find yourself encountering a lady singing with a noose. Singing with a noose? Kitty Orlova is uber-talented, and the noose did no one any harm (I hope), but somehow it just fell flat.

What was the intention? This is left unclear.

The story. The Narrator is the son of a legendary circus performer who mysteriously disappeared

(you’ll never guess who plays her)

(hint - it’s the director).

He takes us down memory lane, showing the quirks, kinks and kindness of each new character (usually Uncle Something or Aunt Someone).

Why not, darling, why the hell not.

This time round The Narrator was actually tolerable. As if he found a muscle of sincerity and tenderness that worked with the (extremely poorly written) story. In fact, he had moments of sheer brilliance when ad-libbing with the audience. He is no doubt a talented fellow, perhaps he just needs to find his director.

It must be said - Leelah’s creativity is ingenious at times. Some of her acts have incredible and well-executed ideas, a coldness that makes German divas of the 30’s envious and true emotion to captivate the audience. But there is something deeply off-putting about 80% of her stage presence, a nerve that adds a tinge demanding adoration…and not in an exciting way. At times there’s something porcelain about her, and at other times - something so self-absorbed, you’re not sure why you were invited.

Bezhetskaya, on the other hand, is warm. She adores (most of) her audience and the audience responds. Some of her ideas are fantastic, and you can see her beautiful attention to details, humour, playfulness, enjoyment of her own body and craft…but then what leaves a sour taste? Somehow the atmosphere just doesn’t come together. It sometimes feels as if she pretends to be something she is not - but what is this object of pretence?

Whoever put that wig and costume on Din-Din is either phenomenally cruel or innocently blind. But if they are blind, all of the people around them, who can in fact see, are phenomenally cruel. Give the girl a break!

Xana. Brilliance. Her Harlequin act is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Marrying acrobatics, heartfelt narrations and a bombacious attitude makes her an absolute feast for the eyes, mind and senses.

Now, I am quite biased about the poet Zkhous. I must admit I love him fondly, since the Dark Cabaret festivals! As always, he was he dear neurotic self and the poetry was as crude as it was lovely.

Orlova, Chess Queen, Lipsync?! What?! On a stage as tiny as this?! With her gorgeous voice?

Also, this act always confuses much, There’s so much going on, she always gets lost in the multitude of actions and doesn’t actually breathe in the story.

Janina Barabash…the voice gimmick was good.

That’s all.

That Silent Movie act…I don’t even know what it was. She’s surrounded by experienced mentors…couldn’t anyone ask her what the hell she was doing? Amoebing around with a velvet ribbon…okay.

Elisha the poodle! Excellent. As always. A story about purpose told through the sex appeal of a Furry. Elisha certainly found his niche and excels at it.

Marilyn Monroe’s “Daddy”. A song CREATED for an enticing act.

Apologies, my vocabulary completely abandons me here. This was unapologetically dreadful. I won’t even bore myself with analysing it. Amateur at its worst.

Madame Irenushkin as the trench-coated shooter…triumph of vulgarity. Shooting at the audience is mauvais-ton in any professional theatre, but if only that was the only sin…One word - sloppy.

Oh, how the audience perked up at the magical word Шашлыки (barbecue)!

KittenTits McGee! Shaving act! Sheer GENIUS. That girl is a marvel and I’ll never tire repeating it. The music, the rhythm, the concept, the layered references - FLAWLESS.

If I’m being nit-picky, the only thing I’d add is playing the pain of epilation more precisely - no one can escape the 4-second agony when that wax comes off.

Agneta Lincheskvaya, a rare guest in Moscow, made an appearance as Aunt Blanche with her “Streetcar named Desire” act. She is unapologetically her own brand and it works - her mix of confidence and fragility, her unique features, her dance skills and her gorgeous depth made the performance stand out. Enticing.

Long Live Aristocratic Erotism!

“Oh, I know! Let’s take the backing track of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and write a whole new song about SHOES!”

Well…hm.

Beautiful neon concept by Lyalya. Gorgeous self-irony.

But Kitty and Lyalya had ZERO chemistry. Kitty was just…standing there, by the side, kind of out of the lights, singing a song with very mediocre lyrics, seemingly uncomfortable.

Why must it be so?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - endlessly re-playing the most banal gender stereotypes is exhausting. Re-affirming society of it’s deepest, roughest shortcomings (especially in Russia), is part of reason why society is in a state it’s in.

The final thought was poetic - “you must treasure hearts”. If only someone for a second thought of taking care of our audience hearts…

And, as always, the bow and the dreaded kiss.

Ladies, no one enjoys it apart from a few troubled, greasy men in the audience and you (which I doubt). A hint of a chance of a kiss would be more in tune with the nature of Burlesque, Dark Cabaret and the gorgeous culture of variety show.

Subtlety.

Teasing…

But I guess it’s all a matter of taste, isn’t it?

The next instalment of this groups creativity is called “Vampires on the beach” and is announced as “the best HElloween in town”.

I’m afraid the only word that comes to mind is...yikes.

Though the artwork is excellent.

PPS

Curious how this “short’n’sweet” idea actually turned into a decent sized text. Apologies! My muse could not be tamed, darling!

#Lyalya Bezhetskaya #variety show #burlesqueinrussia #russian burlesque #burlesque

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bpdleoloveaddict-blog · 7 years

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One of my closest friends has this Fear Of Missing Out thing and I understand, how much it can hurt, feeling left out, feeling like nobody cares...

But she’s rich. She has endless opportunities thrown her way, contacts, wealth, health, holidays, she got a good job straight out of uni...

But whenever I get to do something nice, she’s jealous. I’m taking our friend to Paris because I’ve been planning this trip for years, and I wanted to do it alone, but our friend needs a trip, has no resources, doesn’t feel very good, needs to be treated.

And Miss FOMO finds out and is naturally upset. And then invites herself.

But I can’t say anything because in her head this is anxiety triggering, but what am I supposed to do? Share every little good experience I have with this over-privileged person who feels entitled to literally everything - to the point where someone else doing something fun that she isn’t doing right now causes her acute pain?!

But as usual, all of this is clearly me over-thinking and worrying about letting someone down and upsetting someone and over-analysing the people around me to the point where I split on them because I feel like I can see their shitty motives better than anyone but I don’t know if I can, or if I’m just making it all up based on my skewed perception of the world and of people’s demands of me, because they always feel like too much but mostly I’m just wrong, and that’s not how it is at all, that’s just how my disorder sees it, but I never get to find out, because I seem insane reading into all of these tiny little fucking details of how someone expresses themselves, so I can’t ask about any of it because they feel scrutinised and criticised which is fair, but they also can’t remember any of these little nuances of phrase or facial expressions or responses, or if they can they don’t remember them right, or they remember them better than I do but I’m so sure because it feels like every tiny thing like that is burned onto my retinas.

Even though sometimes people can be telling me important shit about their life and my brain just glances past it, oh but I’ll remember that weird facial expression they made after my voice got slightly higher and louder and i gesticulated wildly to make my point about something.

#long #what is this even about #vent

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sheminecrafts · 5 years

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Facebook is failing to prevent another human rights tragedy playing out on its platform, report warns

A report by campaign group Avaaz examining how Facebook’s platform is being used to spread hate speech in the Assam region of North East India suggests the company is once again failing to prevent its platform from being turned into a weapon to fuel ethnic violence.

Assam has a long-standing Muslim minority population but ethnic minorities in the state look increasingly vulnerable after India’s Hindu nationalist government pushed forward with a National Register of Citizens (NRC), which has resulted in the exclusion from that list of nearly 1.9 million people — mostly Muslims — putting them at risk of statelessness.

In July the United Nations expressed grave concern over the NRC process, saying there’s a risk of arbitrary expulsion and detention, with those those excluded being referred to Foreigners’ Tribunals where they have to prove they are not “irregular”.

At the same time, the UN warned of the rise of hate speech in Assam being spread via social media — saying this is contributing to increasing instability and uncertainty for millions in the region. “This process may exacerbate the xenophobic climate while fuelling religious intolerance and discrimination in the country,” it wrote.

There’s an awful sense of deja-vu about these warnings. In March 2018 the UN criticized Facebook for failing to prevent its platform being used to fuel ethnic violence against the Rohingya people in the neighboring country of Myanmar — saying the service had played a “determining role” in that crisis.

Facebook’s response to devastating criticism from the UN looks like wafer-thin crisis PR to paper over the ethical cracks in its ad business, given the same sorts of alarm bells are being sounded again, just over a year later. (If we measure the company by the lofty goals it attached to a director of human rights policy job last year — when Facebook wrote that the responsibilities included “conflict prevention” and “peace-building” — it’s surely been an abject failure.)

Avaaz’s report on hate speech in Assam takes direct aim at Facebook’s platform, saying it’s being used as a conduit for whipping up anti-Muslim hatred.

In the report, entitled Megaphone for Hate: Disinformation and Hate Speech on Facebook During Assam’s Citizenship Count, the group says it analysed 800 Facebook posts and comments relating to Assam and the NRC, using keywords from the immigration discourse in Assamese, assessing them against the three tiers of prohibited hate speech set out in Facebook’s Community Standards.

Avaaz found that at least 26.5% of the posts and comments constituted hate speech. These posts had been shared on Facebook more than 99,650 times — adding up to at least 5.4 million views for violent hate speech targeting religious and ethnic minorities, according to its analysis.

Bengali Muslims are a particular target on Facebook in Assam, per the report, which found comments referring to them as “criminals,” “rapists,” “terrorists,” “pigs,” and “dogs”, among other dehumanizing terms.

In further disturbing comments there were calls for people to “poison” daughters, and legalise female foeticide, as well as several posts urging “Indian” women to be protected from “rape-obsessed foreigners”.

Avaaz suggests its findings are just a drop in the ocean of hate speech that it says is drowning Assam via Facebook and other social media. But it accuses Facebook directly of failing to provide adequate human resource to police hate speech spread on its dominant platform.

Commenting in a statement, Alaphia Zoyab, senior campaigner, said: “Facebook is being used as a megaphone for hate, pointed directly at vulnerable minorities in Assam, many of whom could be made stateless within months. Despite the clear and present danger faced by these people, Facebook is refusing to dedicate the resources required to keep them safe. Through its inaction, Facebook is complicit in the persecution of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.”

Its key complaint is that Facebook continues to rely on AI to detect hate speech which has not been reported to it by human users — using its limited pool of (human) content moderator staff to review pre-flagged content, rather than proactively detect it.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has previously said AI has a very long way to go to reliably detect hate speech. Indeed, he’s suggested it may never be able to do that.

In April 2018 he told US lawmakers it might take five to ten years to develop “AI tools that can get into some of the linguistic nuances of different types of content to be more accurate, to be flagging things to our systems”, while admitting: “Today we’re just not there on that.”

That sums to an admission that in regions such as Assam — where inter-ethnic tensions are being whipped up in a politically charged atmosphere that’s also encouraging violence — Facebook is essentially asleep on the job. The job of enforcing its own ‘Community Standards’ and preventing its platform being weaponized to amplify hate and harass the vulnerable, to be clear.

Avaaz says it flagged 213 of “the clearest examples” of hate speech which it found directly to Facebook — including posts from an elected official and pages of a member of an Assamese rebel group banned by the Indian Government. The company removed 96 of these posts following its report.

It argues there are similarities in the type of hate speech being directed at ethnic minorities in Assam via Facebook and that which targeted at Rohingya people in Myanmar, also on Facebook, while noting that the context is different. But it did also find hateful content on Facebook targeting Rohingya people in India.

It is calling on Facebook to do more to protect vulnerable minorities in Assam, arguing it should not rely solely on automated tools for detecting hate speech — and should instead apply a “human-led ‘zero tolerance’ policy” against hate speech, starting by beefing up moderators’ expertise in local languages.

It also recommends Facebook launch an early warning system within its Strategic Response team, again based on human content moderation — and do so for all regions where the UN has warned of the rise of hate speech on social media.

“This system should act preventatively to avert human rights crises, not just reactively to respond to offline harm that has already occurred,” it writes.

Other recommendations include that Facebook should correct the record on false news and disinformation by notifying and providing corrections from fact-checkers to each and every user who has seen content deemed to have been false or purposefully misleading, including if the disinformation came from a politician; that it should be transparent about all page and post takedowns by publishing its rational on the Facebook Newsroom so the issue of hate speech is given proportionate prominence and publicity to the size of the problem on Facebook; and it should agree to an independent audit of hate speech and human rights on its platform in India.

“Facebook has signed up to comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” Avaaz notes. “Which require it to conduct human rights due diligence such as identifying its impact on vulnerable groups like women, children, linguistic, ethnic and religious minorities and others, particularly when deploying AI tools to identify hate speech, and take steps to subsequently avoid or mitigate such harm.”

We reached out to Facebook with a series of questions about Avaaz’s report and also how it has progressed its approach to policing inter-ethnic hate speech since the Myanmar crisis — including asking for details of the number of people it employs to monitor content in the region.

Facebook did not provide responses to our specific questions. It just said it does have content reviewers who are Assamese and who review content in the language, as well as reviewers who have knowledge of the majority of official languages in India, including Assamese, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Marathi.

In 2017 India overtook the US as the country with the largest “potential audience” for Facebook ads, with 241M active users, per figures it reports the advertisers.

Facebook also sent us this statement, attributed to a spokesperson:

We want Facebook to be a safe place for all people to connect and express themselves, and we seek to protect the rights of minorities and marginalized communities around the world, including in India. We have clear rules against hate speech, which we define as attacks against people on the basis of things like caste, nationality, ethnicity and religion, and which reflect input we received from experts in India. We take this extremely seriously and remove content that violates these policies as soon as we become aware of it. To do this we have invested in dedicated content reviewers, who have local language expertise and an understanding of the India’s longstanding historical and social tensions. We’ve also made significant progress in proactively detecting hate speech on our services, which helps us get to potentially harmful content faster.

But these tools aren’t perfect yet, and reports from our community are still extremely important. That’s why we’re so grateful to Avaaz for sharing their findings with us. We have carefully reviewed the content they’ve flagged, and removed everything that violated our policies. We will continue to work to prevent the spread of hate speech on our services, both in India and around the world.

Facebook did not tell us exactly how many people it employs to police content for an Indian state with a population of more than 30 million people.

Globally the company maintains it has around 35,000 people working on trust and safety, less than half of whom (~15,000) are dedicated content reviewers. But with such a tiny content reviewer workforce for a global platform with 2.2BN+ users posting night and day all around the world there’s no plausible no way for it to stay on top of its hate speech problem.

Certainly not in every market it operates in. Which is why Facebook leans so heavily on AI — shrinking the cost to its business but piling content-related risk onto everyone else.

Facebook claims its automated tools for detecting hate speech have got better, saying that in Q1 this year it increased the proactive detection rate for hate speech to 65.4% — up from 58.8% in Q4 2017 and 38% in Q2 2017.

However it also says it only removed 4 million pieces of hate speech globally in Q1. Which sounds incredibly tiny vs the size of Facebook’s platform and the volume of content that will be generated daily by its millions and millions of active users.

Without tools for independent researchers to query the substance and spread of content on Facebook’s platform it’s simply not possible to know how many pieces of hate speech are going undetected. But — to be clear — this unregulated company still gets to mark its own homework.

In just one example of how Facebook is able to shrink perception of the volume of problematic content it’s fencing, of the 213 pieces of content related to Assam and the NCR that Avaaz judged to be hate speech and reported to Facebook it removed less than half (96).

Yet Facebook also told us it takes down all content that violates its community standards — suggesting it is applying a far more dilute definition of hate speech than Avaaz. Unsurprising for a US company whose nascent crisis PR content review board‘s charter includes the phrase “free expression is paramount”. But for a company that also claims to want to prevent conflict and peace-build it’s rather conflicted, to say the least.

As things stand, Facebook’s self-reported hate speech performance metrics are meaningless. It’s impossible for anyone outside the company to quantify or benchmark platform data. Because no one except Facebook has the full picture — and it’s not opening its platform for ethnical audit. Even as the impacts of harmful, hateful stuff spread on Facebook continue to bleed out and damage lives around the world.

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