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icharchivist · 4 months

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You mentioned playing DA2 as a mage, is it mostly to give Fenris extra trauma or is mage also your favorite gameplay class?

Both definitely-

joking aside, playing as Mage is the most fun i have in DA in general. I find it more tactical and it allows for better assessment and crowd control, which comes very handy in DAO and DA2 in particular that have such. annoying. Crowds.

DAI has less crowd but it has a slightly more action orientated gameplay. DAO and DA2 are pretty much "you command a character to attack someone, and they'll keep attacking it", with also the possibility to set tactics so your NPCs can also attack them properly (like "if enemies has 90% health: use [Attack]"). DAI has neither of those, which end up being uncomfortable for close ranged battle to me since you have to manually stay close to your enemies. so i like mage more on that specific gameplay.

tho fighting gameplay wise my favorite is really DA2 on that regard, but even if the gameplay is different, it's just always the most fun.

and also it's the most fun lorewise and in term of the unique perspective it gives on the plot of the game.

DA's plots or the way characters interreact with you change whether you're a human, an elf, a dwarf, a vashoth, or a mage (with combo if you're non human mage because oough boy). And the mage lore (and the elven lore) is by far one of the most fascinating aspect of the franchise to me, and i really like to play as Mage as a result because it gives access to interesting story thread. Not to mention that the politics of the game also change depending on which angle you play, and that's also something interesting to take into account.

DA2 in particular feels like THE game you want to play as a Mage into because of how much it changes the plot. DAO and DAI are both about a world ending threat on the horizon and your character being the only one being able to do something about it, so while organizations can be prejudiced against you, it will eventually adapt in order to let you save the world.

DA2 meanwhile is just about a simple human family trying to run away from their destroyed home and immigrating into a very anti-mage city which is led with a iron glove by the Templars who are trying to capture any mages and lock them in the Gallows, while their Knigth Commander gradually become more and more mad and considers eradicating all of the mages, while the character you play end up befriending a radical mage outlaw who has been trying to abolish this system by any means necessary. As a result the plot change a lot if you play as Mage or Non Mage because it changes your personal stakes into it.

Picking playing Mage or Non Mage also indicate which one of your sibling is going to survive: if you play as Mage, Carver survives, if you play as non mage, Bethany survives. Carver is a warrior while Bethany is a mage. The dynamic really changes for Hawke as a result because it's either you're trying to survive and lay a low profile as an illegal mage, or you are invested in protecting your little sister.

I've played both routes and as much as i love Bethany, Carver is the most interesting sibling to me, and he's one of the major reason for me to pick Mage everytime because the conflict between Hawke and Carver is SO interesting and i just really like Carver. I personally always make him a Grey Warden, but he also has the chance to die, or the chance to join the very Templar Order you're hiding from, and it really raises the stakes in a really big way.

(Bethany has the same choices except that instead of joining the Templar, she gets imprisoned because she's found out as an illegal mage, so if you end up on this path you do kinda have some emotional stakes about the whole mage crisis in the city because your little sister's life is at stakes)

You learn early on that your characters' action led to a civil war as the mages from all across the Andrastian Countries have been rebelling inspired by your actions. The reason why, if it's because you were a tyrant who went along with the desire to kill all the mages, or if it's because you helped the mage rebellion, is up to you to define, but as a result i think it has more stakes when you play as a mage.

And it does make the plot regarding Fenris a lot more interesting. Fenris is from a country where Mages reign supreme, and he was a slave to a powerful magistrate who basically tortured Fenris with magic experiments so much so that Fenris forgot his past, and ended up with scars filled with Lyrium, a toxic magical dust that keeps causing him pain, but also gives him the power to faze through things and people (that's why ripping out hearts is his trademark attack).

That's why he distrusts mages and feel comfortable with the way Andrastian Countries are imprisoning their mages so they cannot have the freedom to hurt others with their magic. And it's why he is constantly in conflict with the mages of your party because both of them have taken being an illegal mage a step further with illegal magical practices and he can only see the harm mages can do with this illimited power.

But he clearly comes from a place of trauma. When you first meet him and help him, it's because he's trying to set a trap for his former master so he can finally kill him and stop feeling like he has to constantly be on the run. (note that this plotline can end with Hawke giving Fenris back to his ex master so! fucked up!). But therefore he will have different reactions if he realizes Hawke or one of their friend is a mage, and as a mage you will start with a nerf on his appreciation scale because he will judge you much more harshly.

But he's also willing to discuss it with Hawke and depending on how you play it, he can see that as much as he distrusts mages, they don't deserve this treatment. And i think it especially shines through with his romance with Hawke because he has a personal reason now to care as to why the mages are being mistreated. In the first Act when you're still a renegade, you can go to the Gallows with Fenris in your party and he will... lowkey freak out because "you're a mage you shouldn't be here if they realize what you are you will be taken away" and depending on the personality of your Hawke, Hawke will notice that Fenris seems genuinely concerned for how Hawke would be treated despite advocating that treatment for all the mages. It's really interesting in a way to give Fenris a perspective check, that just because he distrusts mages doesn't mean he should encourage a system that deprives them of full freedom.

In Act 3 the gig is up, you're found out as an illegal mage, but since you basically showed yourself by solving a crisis and saving the City, you're allowed to be free...... for now. But therefore you start to feel the pressure of the Knight Commander who really doesn't like that you're staying free, and is starting also to blackmail you to get her way. If you don't play as mage and if Bethany was taken to the Gallows instead, it's your sister's life that will be threatened. It's genuinely a heavy situation to be in as everything is slowly but surely about to fall apart.

the plot of DA2 just has so much more weight when you play as a mage because you can't be content with just trying to not make any waves nor being noticed by the templars. Things are going to get worse and you're at the center of all of this, and the intersection of the politics and the personal drama is really fascinating, in a way that isn't really there when you play as non-mage, especially if Bethany doesn't get imprisoned by the Templars. Because whether Bethany dies or joins the Grey Wardens, her situation cannot put a pressure on you. So you have only one possible route out of the 3 routes possibles where Bethany being a mage is actually putting pressure on yourself. (unless of course you romance one of the mages, especially Anders since he is the radical mage who wants change at all cost).

so to me it's really also with this aspect of how it's much more interesting to interreact with the plot of da2 in particular from the lenses of a mage.

in DAO there are 6 differents origins and i think all of them do give you a very unique view on the world in front of you and none of them are better than the others. But personally i really like the mage one even more because of the way you can get to explore the magic of this world.

on the other hand DAI doesn't actually feel very different depending on your origin which is kind of a shame, but because DAI is in the middle of the mage/templar civil war, playing as a mage is already setting you in a sort of radical situation that i think really enhance the gameplay. human mage, therefore, has a lot of interesting political implications in DAI (also because like two of the romances options are templar alligned characters so coming from a place of having been under templar's watch add some spice to the romances), but i think that due to further reveal, Elves especially have a very interesting plotline there. Elven Mage is soooo juicy in DAI in the way the lore you learn and the politics of the game always end up concerning you in some way in a way the others origins aren't as much informed about.

BUT YEAH da2 as mage genuinely change the plot A LOT, a lot more than it does in DAO and DAI imo, which is definitely something i recommand because it's FUN.

but also yeah A+ gameplay and anyway believe me you want to be a mage to throw fireball because when you have 20 enemies in front of you, taking them one by one with your little swords and daggers is hellish.

.... coughs so yeah, many thoughts. Don't get me started on the lore i love the lore so much i have all the lore books with stickers all around so i can check back some specific lore points, i'm normal about it--

#ichareply #anonymous #ichafantalks da

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recoveringrhys · 2 years

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mental health book idea

I have just one request before you read my book manuscript. Keep an open mind. I have poured my heart and soul into this piece. I have experienced so much trauma that it has made me numb to the world. I still feel love however, and joy and peace. I haven’t been entirely broken. So, please I ask just this of you; finish it! I can guarantee that you haven’t heard a story like mine before. There’s so much loss, heartbreak and tragedy that it wouldn’t seem out of place if Shakespeare wrote it. Please I beg of you just give me a chance that’s all I need. I know with the power of my words I could help bring down an entire broken system and have it rebuilt, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes. I know in my heart that if my story got out there it would help change so many lives. Make people who feel invisible heard. Make the world a kinder and gentler place. so, sir/madam please sit back and enjoy my life’s story re-told live just for you. I sincerely hope you read this through to the end. I don’t make promises lightly, but can guarantee this, is a story you don’t want to miss out on.

Book Research introduction

IN TODAYS SOCIETY WE ARE FACING A CRISIS THE LIKES WE HAVE NEVER ENCOUNTERED BEFORE. A FULL BREAKDOWN OF THE MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM. FOR YEARS NOW, THE NHS’s system for mental health is on the brink of collapse. Its run so poorly that hundreds if not thousands of patients are being let down. 5,224 deaths by suicide were reported in 2021 in England and Wales. Men contribute three quarters of all suicide deaths around 4100 in 2021. This is directly due to lack of support services available. Even when men are brave enough to get help 9/10 times they will get ignored. I know because I’ve been in those men’s shoes. I’ve walked miles in their trainers or work boots and even some high heels. I know what they are going through, and I feel as though I am the only one who can help. I want to do this by helping the only way I know how, through writing. Words when repeated linger until a fire light up inside them and igniting for the entire universe to see. Men suffer the most out there. Were seen to be made out as the strong ones who can’t show emotions without being ridiculed. I’m here to set the record straight and say let your emotions out. It could one day save your life.

Book synopsis

My book would focus on the lives of young men and women who suffer with severe psychiatric disorders. The protagonist would be a teenage boy around 18 years old. It would begin as early as eight years old in his childhood. He starts to act strange. Didn’t fully fit in with the other kids due to his intelligence being so misunderstood. The book would follow the boy through years of trauma inflicted on him by CAMHS (Child Adolescent Mental Health Service). However, even though we see him become the villain of his own story we see how he got there. We really delve deep into his psyche and emphasise with him. Trauma after trauma was his childhood. He started smoking at 12 and experimenting with drugs at 13. All because he had clinical depression, and the first treatment isn’t getting to the root cause. It’s not therapy but drugging up children on mind altering chemicals. I would write in detail about every failure the Nhs had caused that boy. Now an adult he lives with arms covered in scars from cutting and tattoos from trying to forget. He was alone for many years. Out there drifting through this endless, torturous universe alone. That was until he found his people. Others like him who would never judge and accepted him into a family he never thought he would have. My book will be sad yet heart-warming as you really get to delve into his psyche. Into why he acts and behaves the way he does. The number one chemical running through his veins is love. Its unconditional and finite with him. Many people who suffer from EUPD like him can relate. “I love you even when I hate you” is a favourite quote of his. It truly represents that no matter how much surface anger boils out on top deep down you’ll always have the warmth of his love. As though it’s the warmth a child feels when its held for the first time. Loved bones and all. My story will mainly focus on his times on inpatient psychiatric institutes. The hundreds of anecdotes and short stories of the abuse you receive in that place is unreal. He has been injured by staff and abused by staff. However, he had no rights and they controlled every aspect of his life. When he ate, how much he ate, when he showered, when he slept even when he just wanted some fresh air on his face. It was a mental prison; the worst kind of prison.

Author biography

My name is Rhys Lennon Hill. I’m 20 years old and live in Preston where I go to university as an English literature and creative writing student. My dream has always been to study English. My main aspiration though is to be a writer. My mother always bragged about how I could write my own name at two . growing up in Ireland they thought I was going to be a genius. I was years ahead in English and slightly in maths. However due to a broken education system I fell through the cracks and when my behaviour increased my grades dropped. I was published at 9 years old in a mini sagas children’s short story book. My lifelong passion is writing. I basically missed out on the first three years of high school. I re-joined a small, private one in year 10 and had two years to teach myself 5 years’ worth of curriculum. My biggest achievement is getting 5 gcses at grade 5. Nobody believed in me. Nobody thought I’d get one gcses let alone 5. To me writing comes as naturally as breathing. I have lived an extraordinary life. Filled with the most insane stories you will ever here. The book will be based off my experiences. However, it will also take into consideration others around me and their experiences too. It’s a collective effort. I know so many lost souls with a story to tell, but unfortunately no one to tell it for them. That’s where I want to see change. I want the truly underprivileged, forgotten members of our society to find their voice. I am an open book, and I will be 100% honest with you. I am not writing this book for self-pity. I’m not writing it out of boredom or anger. And I’m certainly not writing it for the money. I am writing to give thousands of lost souls their voices back. I want my stories to relate to the masses and touch their hearts. If I could even help one person with this type of book then my life’s purpose would have been fulfilled.

From the synopsis you’ve painted a picture of me in your minds. A completely natural thing to do. However, please don’t just judge me off of a manuscript. Get to know me give me a call or send an email. I have so many stories in my head that sometimes it does drive me insane. I have nowhere to focus my energy. If given half the chance I would write this book into one of the biggest literature pieces of modern times. I want to be transparent however, yes I do suffer from mental health disorders. Here are some listed below.

Emotionally unstable personality disorder �� 2020 aged 18

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD) -2014 aged 11

Social and generalised anxiety disorder- 2015 .aged 12

Treatment resistant depression – 2016 aged 13

Self harm started 2014 ( aged 11)ended 2020 I am 500 days clean today

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD) 2014 aged 11

Bulimia- 2010-present aged 8

THESE ILLNESSES DO NOT DEFINE ME!

I DEFINE AND CONQOUR MYSELF…

I have been heavily medicated since I was 13. I was diagnosed with depression at 13 and put on Prozac. All my teenage and adult life so far has been focused on me staying well. I have all these problems going on inside and when mixed with emotions well that’s a recipe for disaster.

Regardless of all the trauma and the hatred mixed with rage, I am coming out on top. I was failed hundreds of times by doctors and other professionals who were supposed to help me. So bad that now when I struggle the farthest person id go to is a professional. Now I have friends, no family. They speak my language and understand me in ways nobody else ever could. We bond over our shared trauma experiences and it’s a beautiful thing.

Final selling point:

If you have made it this far, I applaud and thank you so much for making time to hear my story. All I want is for someone to take a chance on me. I know I could make a bestselling book if given half the chance. Not only a bestseller but a book that makes real impact, changes real lives. I don’t come from much financially and I’m still just a student. However, I just need someone to help me catch the big break I need. So, if you’re interested in helping me get my work published, please get in contact by any means. Help me make a difference and enact real change on a failing and flawed system. I can finally say that thanks to help from friends and having hobbies like writing I am now officially in recovery. Something I never thought possible. But it is possible, and I can help others too. Thank you very much for reading.

#bpd quotes #bpd shit #bpd feels #bpd meme #actually borderline #actually bpd #eupdawareness #eupd recovery #eupd #adult adhd #bulimia #anxeity #john christopher depp ii

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linzumi · 2 years

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my thumb hurts

#i drew this on my phone #this was half assed but why does it look better than literally any of the other drawings i’ve done of him #this upsets me #i’m distraught #dissapointment #in pain #zuko #prince zuko #atla #atla fanart #zuko fanart #i will now on be using this color pallet to draw him and he is half blind #me? draw his scare to resemble a hand pressing itself to his eye? no.. never.#my favorite colonizer #i love him #look at this man #if he chased you around the whole world and demanded that you give up your bf so he could restore his honor while going through #an early life crisis and giving you and your family trauma but in the end eventually becoming one of your greatest friends #would you still say no?#the brush that i drew this with is growing on me.#ibispaint art #i really wanna change my user but i’m to attached bc it’s a rare pair ship name lmfao!#i hate him #he needs to die #zuko is bisexual #honestly i like him better with short hair but the thought of him having luscious long flowing black silky smooth ass long hair is v nice #do i draw more of him tho and risk giving my thumb a blister?#u have given myself blisters on my thumb from using it to much to draw it’s so funny

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astrolovecosmos · 3 years

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Saturn Return: In the Houses

Saturn Return is not an easy part of life to interpret.... it also tends to not be an easy part of life period. Saturn Return is associated with a lot of scary things to be honest - trials, burdens, old cycles ending, new paths, challenges to overcome, hobbies or traits abandoned, etc. This is the coming of age in the astrological world. While culturally we see our early twenties or even late teens as the mark of adulthood, Saturn Return marks entry into adulthood in your late twenties and early thirties. While great change is manifested it is almost always connected to a path to maturity. Divorce, breakups, marriage, career changes, and pregnancy are the most common examples of Saturn Returns but I think it is important for everyone to know they are the most common EXAMPLES not the most common events. If you interviewed everyone about their time during their Saturn Return you would likely find a huge variety of life events, both large and dramatic or subtle and impactful or enlightening. When reading Saturn Return in the Houses below keep in mind this process can show itself in so many different forms.

1st House: Saturn Return in the House of identity is going to focus on large changes in personality. It may also indicate a loss of ego or the development of healthy pride and an ego and outer personality that can live in balance with emotional and spiritual needs. Getting lost in others’ identities may need to be overcome, leaving behind those who don’t appreciate who they are, or coming out of their shell and dealing with a new journey of self are associated. Separation is associated with the 1st and this can mean divorce, leaving friendships, lovers, or even family, it could even mean separation of soul and ego, personality and career, or even highly literal with separation from a society or group. Those with Saturn in this House may have struggled with independence throughout their life. This can be on either extreme - finding it hard to be independent or hyper independence. during Saturn Return an individual may find a newfound independence OR may learn how to healthily connect and discover unharmful co-dependency. During Saturn Return in the 1st House can be a time where one reflects on how they became... them. Who or what shaped their personality? Why are they like “that”? There is a focus on revisiting trauma or important impacts on early childhood development. Someone with Saturn Return in the 1st House may also have a crisis or Eureka moment in terms of their self-expression. Maybe someone wants to finally start seriously pursuing their art or be more open about emotions, intentions, and opinions.

2nd House: Many people associate Saturn Return in the 2nd House with a change of career or loss or gain of money, property, or things. Saturn Return in the 2nd can address a variety of topics with a great focus on self-worth, values, and security. This can mean finally setting boundaries and stopping people pleasing behavior. It can mean standing up to or leaving behind loved ones who don’t value them or treat them right. Saturn Return in the 2nd may also address what one values and depth. This can manifest as someone becoming less shallow and paying attention to deeper connections and going after meaning or substance. It can manifest as someone reevaluating what they hold dear or believe in even if they lived a life that wasn’t necessarily shallow or focused on the material world. Believing in one’s self more or realizing their strengths is associated as they take a look at how they value themselves. Resources is associated with this house and one may recognize all the resources available to them or go after new opportunities. The 2nd House can be about security - financially, emotionally, and physically. You may see someone who starts to become less fearful OR stars to pay attention to and pursue people, things, and paths that give them greater stability and safety. This House is known for very physical and literal manifestations. While many times text or people talk about emotions or the internal world and the physical and external world as two separate things, they aren’t. That can be an important lesson or practice for Saturn Return in the 2nd. Decluttering, changing buying habits, budgeting, moving, being more hands on or taking on DIY hobbies and tasks, redistributing resources or responsibilities in the home and family, volunteering, or donating can all be very impactful during this individual’s Saturn Return and may match up to what they are going through or help them heal or give clarity.

3rd House: During Saturn Return in the 3rd can be filled with changing one’s thinking as well as a lot of learning from and teaching others. Revisiting insecurities and trauma that surround communication, confidence in intelligence, interest in learning, education, siblings, extended family, childish rivalries, and immediate community is associated. The way one approaches socialization may be changed along with how they fit into or give back their community. Many with this placement give back through teaching, networking, or being a main source of information for others. Some may come out of their shell while others learn to find peace in a smaller, tight-nit group. Many with their Saturn Return in the 3rd House may find that they have finally found their voice. This is a time where one feels confident and wise enough to start truly expressing themselves. There can be newfound appreciation for their observative, thoughtful, energetic, and versatile nature that they may have been critical of in the past. Leaving behind competitive, over practical or over intellectualized viewpoints and approaches, and a restless or anxious nature is associated. There can be an emphasis on connecting with what makes you feel mentally challenged or stimulated or what makes you feel part of a community. Because the 3rd House is associated with short-term, close distance, or familiar travel those with Saturn Return here could leave or return to their hometown at this time. Finally having the means to travel with their friends, family, or to places that inspire or comfort them may happen. Making unexpected decisions about traveling or moving or for once to NOT travel or move is connected. One may also reevaluate their desire to travel or an inner restlessness towards community they’ve always felt.

4th House: This is a time for a lot of reflection on how one was raised, about their past, ancestry, roots, or immediate family. While the 4th House in general is usually known as a “quieter, introverted, or subtle” place, Saturn Return in the 4th may actually involve a lot of action and change. Many associate Saturn Return in the 4th with starting a family, setting boundaries with family, or becoming separated from family. For individuals with Saturn Return in the 4th House it may be the beginning of questioning who they are and where they came from. In a way this Saturn Return may truly feel like a rebirth. Settling old family feuds or reconnecting with estranged family is associated. Finding peace with family trauma or even returning or leaving their hometown may happen. Topics of comfort, comfort zones, nurturing, healing, and sensitivity are associated with Saturn Return in the 4th as well. This can be a time where one embraces their softer side or depth. This can be a time when one finally feels powerful enough to explore outside their comfort zone. Seeing a therapist has been strongly connected to Saturn in the 4th, but honestly I would say Saturn Return in general has a strong connection to therapy considering it is a challenging or lifechanging time period for many. Maturing for Saturn Return in the 4th usually involves being their own parent/reparenting, putting family or self first for the first time, overcoming family trauma or cycles, or tapping into their emotions and intuition on a level that was never done before, or thought possible. Saturn Return in the 4th House could also be connected to buying a house or making a permanent home somewhere. Also a change in the physical home can be part of this Saturn Return, for example facing a flood or fire OR finally having enough money for a remodel, frequent redecorating (especially if it helps with mental health or match the individual’s changing moods), or finally creating a healthy routine for household chores.

5th House: Having children is a common example people like to use for Saturn Return in the 5th House. The House of creation, creativity, romance, celebration, pleasure, bravery, even conquest - it is such a vibrant, heated house that tends to be painted in a positive light. Saturn Return in the 5th can still be filled with challenges despite its sunny reputation. Saturn Return in the 5th can indicate a new sense of revitalization, for example maybe someone is more willing to take risks, they discover they are a closeted adrenaline junkie, maybe they want to pursue a long-lost crazy dream, it can be a time when someone finds their courage. Saturn Return in the 5th can have a lot of influence on romantic relationships - making an individual question their “type”, their view on love, and their approach to romance. Marriage and children play a big role when Saturn brings discipline, wisdom, and maturity to the house but if we shred away the symbolism we get to creation and matters of the heart - desire and connection. Emotion, soul, and vitality may fight and dance during this time as Saturn Return takes these individuals down corridors of their own ego, self, generosity, selfishness, and power. Children and marriage are intense ways of exploring these topics but so can deciding to truly live for yourself, taking on a new passion, joining a cause, or making a conscious effort to not care what other’s think.

6th House: Saturn Return in the 6th is most famous for manifesting in very physical and/or obvious ways. Popular examples are coming down with an illness that greatly impacts their lives, going through a mental illness crisis OR significantly improving their mental or physical health, having to take care of someone who gets sick, or a career change with a focus on the medical field. Two examples or themes I don’t see talked about as much and should be a large focus for Saturn Return in the 6th is a change in lifestyle and/or routine, which can happen in a huge variety of ways. While the 3rd and 9th are associated with travel and the 2nd, 4th, and 8th with property - I could see many with Saturn Return in the 6th find themselves making great changes in terms of where and how they live. The first example that comes to mind are people who leave behind renting or goals for a single-family home to live in a tiny home, van, RV, or off the grid. A drastic change in one’s everyday life is what this Saturn Return may boil down to. Making decisions to become more stable, financially secure, healthier, and practical is associated with this Saturn Return. This Saturn Return could be viewed as a commitment to improving the self above all else. The 6th House is about habits, teamwork, helping others, health, routine, the mundane - finally breaking a bad habit or even addiction may be the unsuspecting key to growth for some whereas others will decide to devote their life to a missionary or cause.

7th House: Wedding bells, divorce, lawsuits, or getting into a new long-term relationship are the hot topics for Saturn Return in the 7th. In terms of lawsuits, they usually revolve around divorce or long-standing enemies or heated relationships. But I’ll stop with the fear mongering because Saturn Return in the 7th House can happen in a lot more ways than just diamond rings or broken hearts. This House has a lot to say and connect in terms of self-love, this may be a breakthrough for setting boundaries or self-care. Learning to balance vulnerability with authority or confidence may be a big deal for this transition. Opening up to others on a more real/honest level may be a new thing for people with Saturn Return in the 7th. Addressing feelings of loneliness is connected to Saturn Return here - this can mean finding independence or acceptance with being single, diving into why one way struggle with more intimate relationships, or realizing one tends to feel lonely even when around close friends or in long-term romantic relationships. Saturn Return in the 7th House can deal with all types of relationships, ending a life-long friendship or starting a life-long friendship could happen, making amends with a long-term enemy or maybe standing up to an enemy or oppressor can be an example. Swinging back and forth between relationship with the self and with others may be the most prominent crossroad for people who are “maturing” through the 7th House. This House is about attraction, cooperation, and relating but during Saturn Return I think this could be viewed as the house or time of decisions, who do they choose? And there is no wrong answer in terms of the heart but an important answer.

8th House: May have more financial manifestations than expected from winning lawsuits to gaining an unsuspected inheritance, Saturn Return in the 8th can mean a time where money or property is gained or loss, usually with the involvement of another person or institution such as a loan or getting a down payment from family. Money’s tie to power and influence may be one reason why those with Saturn Return here may deal more with the material/financial world than even those with Saturn Returns in the 2nd. The 8th House is the House of death and a very popular example is dealing with the loss of a loved one during Saturn Return but let’s stop any worry or fear of your loved one dying during this time because there is a whole lot of other ways this Saturn Return can challenge, guide, and strengthen a person. Also please keep in mind many astrologers debate whether the “death” association is more literal or metaphorical, at least from my experience I would say a large majority lean more towards metaphorical. There can be a death of ego, childish fears, career, or maybe a strength whether that is in the realm of physical health or a sense of confidence that always was a source of power for them. Being the House that sometimes is associated with transformations the possibilities for an “internal death” really can be endless. Those who go through this Saturn Return may find themselves with a completely different personality/self after. I’ve mentioned that Saturn Return in the 4th is connected to therapy and really that all Saturn Returns can find benefit to therapy, the 8th House tends to have a strong theme with seeking out psychological help or knowledge. This can be a time period where one explores theirs or other’s psyche even without the aid of a therapist or psychiatrist. There is an association with looking beyond the physical realm with those who have their Saturn Return in the 8th. This could be a sudden interest in the occult, many astrologers tie illness and looking beyond physical strength and tuning into inner strength because of this, they may become deeper due to childbirth or marriage - realizing family or intense bonds are where power comes from. The 8th House is associated with intimacy and sharing, this can be a time where one “grows up” because they have others depending on them. This can also be a time where they open up more with their intentions and deeper side. They no longer are afraid of skeletons in their closet.

9th House: Going back to school or a change in belief or religion are popular examples of Saturn Return in the 9th House. While the 2nd, 6th, and 10th are most known for a big change in career during Saturn Return, the 9th House can manifest a lot of this as well. Pursuing knowledge is a cornerstone for this Saturn Return and therefore a change of life path to find meaning and truth can happen. A change in religion can be a major impact on someone’s life, for some it can be a quiet transition but for many it can be loud and cause drama among friends and family. Maybe an individual joins their spouse’s religion or go as far as to join a cult. Or maybe someone becomes free of a religion they felt they were forced to follow their whole life. Changes in philosophy can happen or they may be impacted by their community’s shift in beliefs such as finding themselves more critical of another group of people or being victim to other’s beliefs. For people with Saturn Return in the 9th this time period can actually be a fragile time for ego, identity, and disillusionment. A life event may shatter their core understanding of a person, place, or ideology. The reality of one’s world or understanding of self can be at stake. There is a need to find truth somehow whether through religion, relating to a certain group of people, or changing one’s outlook and approach to the world. The 9th House is associated with long distance or foreign travel. Joining a career in travel or that involves a lot of travel may happen. There is a curiosity about the world, an expansive mindset that grows during this Saturn Return. Finally getting out and seeing the world may be part of their path to maturity. There can also be a newfound interest in politics, world news, or culture. The 9th and 3rd House are frequently talked about in the realm of the intellectual. But Saturn Return in either of these houses can be a time where one seeks belonging, rest, stability and/or contentment. Don’t underestimate the 9th for only being an area of growth for the mind, this is a time where spiritual and emotional growth are put in the forefront through means of new knowledge and acceptance. 10th House: Career and reputation are popular focuses for Saturn Return in the 10th, but really this is all about a sense of purpose for an individual. There are a lot of revaluating and itching thoughts during this time about past ambitions. Here an individual may completely change the course of their life especially through career or family. This may be a time period where someone starts to question the authority in their life OR they start becoming their own authority. Saturn Return in the 10th can be a time where one feels and shows their confidence over who they are, their life, reputation, and skills. Questioning boundaries, rules, and discipline can come into play. This doesn’t always have to be an act of rebellion or separation; this can be a time where one makes new rules for themselves and others or understands the importance of certain boundaries. Standing up to or strengthening relationships with mentors, in-laws, one’s father, or with professional peers could make a big impact during this Saturn Return. Reputation is connected to the 10th House and during Saturn Return one could gain a new reputation that is prominent or gains them favor. It can also be a time where one stops caring about reputation. They finally start doing what matters to them no matter what society or family thinks. While the 10th is how we act in public, how we are accepted - Saturn Return in the 10th may be a path towards being the rebel or black sheep for some. This can also be a time period where one starts to pay more attention to society, traditions, and expectations. Maybe they were wild and careless in their youth but now start to understand the importance of certain values and practices in their community. Saturn in the 10th can form someone who becomes a leader in their community or a source of wisdom.

11th House: Saturn Return in the 11th House can be a time where one questions their taste in friends. A common example is also joining or leaving a major organization. Someone who felt like they didn’t belong often in life may finally find a group that feels right to them and gives them fulfillment. Leaving behind long-standing friendships is associated and so is making new, impactful fellowships. During this Saturn Return someone may also get let down or disillusioned by a group or even society. The 10th - 12th House have connections to the collective, in terms of the 11th there is generally a focus on belonging, trends, the big picture, progress, technology, innovation, and humanitarian efforts. One may finally stop living their life under FOMO or peer pressure. For those with this Saturn Return a lot of questions and decisions boil down to “do I care what others think?” Peers play a big role in this person’s life whether it is through coworkers and classmates or friendship. Redefining friendship, how to fit in, and how to stand out are major topics. Addressing social status and the insecurities that revolve around “popularity” or important social needs get evaluated. A sudden interest in technology may occur or politics and movements that greatly influence the future. Also living life in a more original way to who they are and what they want may happen. Finally getting one’s head straight to pursue a life-long dream can be a manifestation of Saturn coming back to the House of aspirations. Facing down laziness vs. ambition can be a topic that I don’t always see get talked about for Saturn Return in the 11th. The 11th House can be our wildest dreams, sometimes that is impractical but other times it is a bridge between hope and what is possible. An individual may find the energy, discipline, or resources to make their big ideas come true. Some have connected being influenced by worldly events to Saturn Return in the 11th. This can be hard to interpret as with any major event a huge number of people will be affected. But what might stand out for someone with Saturn Return in the 11th during that event is that the consequences not only directly impact them, but those consequences lead to maturity or a big life change. Learning what is progressive or revolutionary for someone on an individual level could be a way this Return is manifested. This isn’t to say an individual will become “progressive” in a belief or political sense, but they will start to look forward to the future with what they want. What gives them more freedom, stimulation, what will bring them real change? This can also be a time where one faces acceptance vs. rejection insecurities. Are they done playing nice just to fit in? Do they start to see rejection as a learning experience or even a badge of honor?

12th House: A change in belief systems or getting in touch with spirituality are common examples of Saturn Return in the 12th House. Treating or taking one’s mental health seriously is another common example. For anyone with this Saturn Return there is likely a lot to heal from. This House has connections to sensitivity, depth, compassion, healing, learning unconditional love, and forgiveness. These themes will likely be prominent in some way during this Saturn Return. Self-love or forgiveness of the self or family members may be common. Getting in touch with intuition or one’s emotional side may be the big mark of adulthood. Or one may find that they are staring down heavy topics such as escapism or addiction during this time period. The focus is the breach between the physical and spiritual world and overcoming one’s biggest shadows for this Saturn Return. We all have wounds to overcome but by practicing forgiveness and compassion does this person enter into a more mature way of thinking or being. In my experience people tend to get frustrated with the intangible examples of this House or find it hard to relate to with its associations of past lives and karma. Some solid examples Saturn Return in the 12th are: forgiving a loved one who has past, being the one to make the decision to admit themselves to rehab, starting a support group, or reaching out to someone they wronged in the past. The 12th House is associated with the past, typically past lives or time in the womb. For those who do not believe in past lives this House leaves an ambiguous connection to the past. Facing past demons, wounds, feelings about the past, or revisiting illusions of the past may be one of the most straightforward ways to describe the 12th’s connection to the past without going into details about spirituality. What areas of the past have left you most tender or vulnerable? What secrets or lies were you told about your past that have influenced you? These are questions that may help one navigate their Saturn Return. Uncovering secrets is strongly associated with the 12th, whether we are talking about secret talents, enemies, or unnoticed feelings. Saturn Return in the 12th may be a time where all that was once hidden starts bubbling up to the surface. Helping others is a path to maturity many may take during this Saturn Return. Also learning humility can be associated. Isolation, reflection, and calmness or quietness can be associated with the 12th. This may be a time where someone chooses to live more peacefully or in isolation. Through the many manifestations of this House, the individual who goes through trials within the 12th, I would imagine will grow into someone very wise or live in a way that is beyond ego.

#saturn #saturn return #astrology #zodiac #learn astrology #astrological houses #houses #natal chart #transit chart

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lizacstuff · 3 years

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Sen Çal Kapımı ep 48 asks

THE EPISODE WHERE THEY FINALLY GOT MARRIED!!!!!!!

SERKAN AND EDA ARE MARRIED!!

FINALLY!

YES!!!!!!!!!

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, asks under the read more.

andhewonherheart asked: @andhewonherheart I love that Bolat is Aydan’s last name, not Alptekin’s. I know it’s a little of a retcon, but this way we don’t need to worry about Serkan and his family carrying that man’s name. And Aydan would be a woman that strongarms her husband into taking her last name.

I LOVED THIS! I sat up straight when Kemal made the comment about Alptekin taking her name and cheered. Seriously. What a great turn of events. Serkan is so attached to his name, it’s nice that he didn’t have to have an identity crisis over that on top of everything else. And now it’s not weird for Eda and Kiraz to take his name after finding out Kemal is actually his father, which I wanted for them. I wanted them all to be tied together with a name, to have that feeling of belonging. Plus, as you say, it’s nice they don’t have the name of that man.

I will say one thing, though... is it really a retcon? Did they ever say Bolat was Alptekin’s given last name? I don’t think they did (but who knows with the iffy translations we all rely on). I do remember Aydan bragging on the lineage of the Bolats in a very early episode (maybe 2?) and at the time I thought it was odd that she was so proud of the lineage when she just married into it, especially because if memory serves she was sort of heckling Eda, who was marrying a Bolat. Perhaps this was always intended, and we only feel like it’s a retcon because we’re programmed by a patriarchal society to assume a woman always take a man’s last name?

Anonymous asked: I don’t really like the idea of Serkan giving up Art Life. I understand the symbolism of him giving up his work for his family, but I would’ve preferred that he finds a balance, like he did with bringing Kiraz to work. I feel like that would’ve been a more rounded way of approaching his character, instead of swinging him in the other direction, now instead of having only work, he only has his family. When he could have both.

He will have both. Eventually. He’ll figure it out and get back to where he was. He is Serkan Bolat after all. You don’t expect him to sit idle for any length of time, do you?

As much as part of me was just torn up at him selling his stake in the company, I thought it was really beautiful. Sure, balance is good, but this is a man who has ripped out Eda’s heart twice by telling her that work is more important than she is to him. This is a man who left ON HIS WEDDING DAY, who put work first ON HIS WEDDING DAY, who got on a plane ON HIS WEDDING DAY because he tried to balance (do both, go to Italy and get married in one day) and it ended up putting them both through hell and almost ruining both of their lives.

Picture how you would feel if the person you were marrying decided to fly to another country on your wedding day?

So I disagree with you. I’m more than fine with Serkan Bolat unequivocally putting Eda first over his career and company. After everything they’ve been though, and her insecurities in that area, it was incredibly important and now she will never, ever doubt where his heart lies. It’s with her. She (and their family) is his top priority.

Besides, the show started with Serkan having destroyed Eda’s dream of studying to become a landscape architect in Italy, it’s quite poetic that he gave up something substantial so that she could realize a dream of working as a landscape architect on her dream project in Italy.

I’m pretty sure she’ll be more than happy to help rebuild their company. Together.

Anonymous asked: i know you said in your previous ask round-up that as far as the actual proposal goes, nothing would top that speech in 27.. i was wondering how you felt about his speech this episode. sure, it wasn't actually the proposal, more like a "reception" toast, but for me i think it was my favorite speech, or at least top 3, serkan has said to/about eda.. just pure love about their journey together and a huge full circle moment with that video from the pilot episode.

YEEEEEESSSSSS. I so agree with this, and actually thought exactly this while watching. It was a marvelous speech and while, as you say, it was presented as more of a toast, it was really more of a wedding vow.

I loved it. And I’ve rewatched it multiple times and I plan to watch it many times more. As always Kerem and Hande were excellent in the scene. Eda and Serkan were in front of their friends and family, but they were so focused in on one another they might as well have been alone. The emotion was palpable.

She is love. Dang, Serkan! He’s mentioned love at first sight a couple of times, it was nice that in this moment he gave another nod to that.

Loved the call back to the video from the first episode, it worked really well, especially to remind us of how it all started and how she felt like he destroyed her dream. That segued into him mentioned them destroying each other’s dreams. As I said above, quite poetic, especially since he then put his money where his mouth was by the end of the episode and destroyed his dream to preserve hers.

Well done, show.

Anonymous asked: i have loved the tone of this season so much. none of the drama we have is super heavy, outside of the kiraz reveal which was given the angst and importance it should have bc of how it important it was. otherwise, we've had happy (now married!) edser coming back together and now facing trouble and issues as a couple! this was basically all i wanted for them since 28!

Yes, me too. I really enjoy the tone this season. As you say, it’s not super heavy, the melodrama is at a minimum, most things are light and fluffy and even heavy issues are played with a light hand.

For me, I’ve really enjoyed this season and I’m super glad we got it. I think COVID did us one favor by shutting down production when it did and forcing them to reevaluate what they were doing. If they hadn’t I’m guessing the show would have continued in a very messy and directionless manner, with lots of melodrama and storylines that would have been traumatic to watch.

Season 2 has direction and purpose and a plan and once we got past the horrified shock of the time jump and the secret daughter (which I grant you was no small feat) it’s pretty much been trauma free.

Anonymous asked: After watching the episode, I'm lowkey disappointed. we did get Pretty Woman SCK-style. I was promised Serkan as a gigilo and Eda encouraging it!!!!! LOL, jokes aside, I'll never forget the outrage over that fragman over "harassment" or "prostitution" of all things when the actual dinner scene lasted 3 minutes, Eda was being at the hotel the whole time, and the scene where people thought she was encouraging him was about her project. Almost 50 eps and you would ppl would learn how fragmans work.

The fragman was insanely misleading, but lots of them are, so you would think they would have figured it out by now, but nope! A large swath of people really embarrassed themselves with their complete over reaction to something that turned out to be nothing like they thought.

Thankfully Serkan was entirely in the dark about how dire the situation was and why Eda was pushing him to make nice with Deniz, and only humored Deniz very unwillingly and then completely cut ties with her. I think the best part was the least shocking twist ever... that the Serkan staying in her room line was an actual joke on the show. Come on, kids, it was pretty obvious to anyone with a brain that Serkan would never actually consider staying with her, and certainly not just days after he got married. Preposterous!

Having said that, I do agree with people who think that Deniz being obsessed with him to that degree is dumb. There is a thread of misogyny and internalized misogyny (depending on which writers) running through the writing of these female guest characters who come in and absolutely shed all dignity, sanity and common sense when it comes to Serkan. Selin, Balca, the actress and Deniz. Good grief. However, I just don’t care enough to get pissy. If that’s what they’ve come up with to fuel the jealousy trope that apparently is a must for Turkish dizis without having Serkan ever have eyes for anyone but Eda, then so be it.

The formula is more than obvious by now, so I’m not sure why some folks made asses of themselves jumping to other conclusions.

#Sen Çal Kapımı #Sen Cal kapimi #edser #sckask #asklizac #sck episode discussion #edser discussion #sck 2x48 #anonymous

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Squid Game’s Scathing Critique of Capitalism

https://ift.tt/3kOEMpF

This Squid Game article contains MAJOR spoilers.

From the very first game of ddakji out in the real world with Train to Busan actor Gong Yoo, Squid Game poses the question: how far would you go for money? How much of your body, your life, would you trade to keep the wolves at bay and to get to live the life you’ve always dreamed? Once you start, could you stop, even if you wanted to? And in the end, would it even be worth it? While Squid Game depicts an attempt to answer these questions taken to the extreme, they are the same essential questions posed to everyone living under capitalism: What kind of job, what terrible hours, what back-breaking labor, what level of abuse, what work/life imbalance will we tolerate in exchange for what we need or want to live? Unlike many examples of this genre, Squid Game is set in our contemporary reality, which makes its scathing critique of capitalism less of a metaphor for the world we live in and more of a literal depiction of life under capitalism.

Squid Game’s Workers

At the most basic level, the entire competition within Squid Game would not exist without extreme financial distress creating a ready pool of players. It’s no coincidence that Gi-hun’s hard times started when he lost his job, followed by violence against the workers who went on strike. Strike-breakers and physical violence against striking workers may feel like an antiquated idea to an American audience. South Korea, however, has something of an anti-labor reputation, with only 10% of its workers in unions and laws limiting unions to negotiating pay, among other restrictions. In the US, the anti-labor fight is alive and well, though transformed, where it takes the shape of the deceptively named “Right to Work” laws, which benefit corporations and make it harder for unions to operate.

As noted in our review, (most of) the players choose to leave and then willingly return to the arena, which separates Squid Game from other entries in the genre like the Hunger Games series and Escape Room. This element of volition contributes to the series’ primary critical goal. As Mi-nyeo and others brought up early on, they’re getting killed in the real world too, but at least inside they might actually get something for their troubles.

As an anti-capitalist parable, the only ways to fight back or upend the game in some small way are through acts of solidarity or by turning down the allure of the cash. The final clause in the game’s consent form states that the game can end if a majority of players agree to do so. After the brutal Red Light, Green Light massacre in the first, they do exactly that. The election might as well be a union vote. It’s shocking that the contract for the game included an escape clause at all, but it seems the host and his ilk enjoy at least allowing the illusion of free will if nothing else. The players who didn’t return after the first vote to leave the game, though unseen in this narrative, are perhaps the wisest of all.

Squid Game’s Most Heartbreaking Hour is Also Its Best

By Kayti Burt

Squid Game Ending Explained

By Kayti Burt

During tug of war, Gi-hun’s team surprises everyone by winning. Their teamwork, unity of purpose, and superior strategy help them defeat a stronger adversary, which is a basic principle of labor organizing, albeit usually not at the expense of the lives of other workers. Player 1 (Il-nam) and Player 240 (Ji-yeong) each find their own way to beat the game by essentially backing out of the competition during marbles. In exchange for friendship and choosing the circumstances of their own deaths, Ji-yeong and Il-nam each make their own, ethically sound choice under this miserable system. Il-nam gets an asterisk since he was never going to die, but he still found a choice beyond merely “kill” or “be killed” by teaching his Gganbu one “last” lesson and helping him continue on in the game.

In the end, Gi-hun confounds the VIPs and the Front Man by coming to the precipice of victory and simply walking away. Under capitalism, this group of incredibly rich men simply could not understand how someone could come so close to claiming their prize, and choose not to. But for Gi-hun, human life always had greater value. Gi-hun followed (Player 67) Sae-byeok’s advice and stayed true to himself, refusing to actively take anyone’s life, especially not the life of his friend.

Squid Game’s Ruling Class

Since the competition only exists because of the worst aspects of capitalism, it’s not surprising that in the end, it is itself a capitalist endeavor. Ultra-wealthy VIPs, who mostly seem to be white, Western men, spectate for a price and bet on the game. In their luxury accommodations, they lounge on silent human “furniture” and mistreat service staff. In one notable example, a VIP threatens to kill a server (who the audience knows to be undercover cop Hwang Jun-ho) if he doesn’t remove his mask, even though the VIP knows it would cost the server his life.

Perhaps most enraging of all is what Player 1, who turns out to actually be the Host, has to say to Gi-hun a year after the game ends. It all circles back to the game’s existential connection to economics; on the one hand, there is the unshakeable link to a population in which a significant portion of people suffer from dire financial woes. On the other hand, there is the Host and his cronies, the ultra-rich who are so bored from their megarich lives that they decided to bet on deadly human bloodsport for fun just so they could feel something again, as though they were betting on horses.

In spite of the enormous gulf between the two, the Host attempts to draw comparisons between the ultra-wealthy and the extreme poor, saying both are miserable. His little joke denies the reality of hunger, early death, trauma, and many other ways that being poor is actively harmful, both physically and mentally. It’s the kind of slow death that makes risking a quick one in the arena seem reasonable. He and his buddies were just kind of bored. Moreover, the Host denies the role of economic coercion in players taking part in the game, insisting that everyone was there of their own free will. But what free will can there be for people who owe millions, with families at home to care for and creditors at their back, when someone comes along and offers a solution, even a dangerous one? Anyone who has taken a dodgy job offer to get away from a worse one, or because they’re unemployed and the rent and college loans are due, knows that there is a limit to how truly free our choices can be when we need money, especially if there’s little to no safety net.

Why Are Squid Game’s English-Language Actors So Bad?

By Kayti Burt

Best Squid Game Doll Sightings

By Kayti Burt

Throughout the series, it is clear that someone had to be funding Squid Game at a high level. Unlike science fiction or fantasy takes, the show is grounded in our current reality, so the large-scale, high-tech obstacles and the island locale must have cost a pretty penny. Of course for any who see it as unrealistic, consider the example of Jeffrey Epstein, a man who bought an island from the US government and ran a sexual abuse and human trafficking ring not entirely disimilar (though far more pedestrian in its purpose) from this one.

The Host is able to pay for everything because he works in – you guessed it – banking. It’s a profession where he gained wealth by moving capital around. Given the Korean debt crisis – South Korea has the highest household debt in the world, both in size and growth – his profession makes him a worthy villain, in the same way the Lehman Brothers were after the 2008 crash. The bank executive calls in Gi-hun to offer him investment products and services, because of course someone with 45 billion won can accrue significantly more money passively, and who wouldn’t want that? Gi-hun’s decision to walk away is a callback to his earlier attempt to walk away from Squid Game when millions of dollars was within his grasp.

Throughout the series, the people running the game actively pit the players against one another in much the same way capitalism pits workers against one another. Whether they’re giving the players less food to encourage a fight overnight, the daily influx of cash every time another player dies, or giving them knives for the evening, the mysterious people pulling the strings want the players to fight each other like crabs in a barrel so they can’t work together to figure out what’s going on or take on the guys in red jumpsuits. Though there are notable examples of the players working together to succeed, it is always within the rules of the system. It is never treated as a viable or likely option for the players to team up and take the blood money literally hanging over their heads or to prevent death, merely to redirect it or choose how they will die. No, to win that, they must play the Squid Game’s rules.

In our society, this kind of worker-vs-worker rhetoric takes the form of employers telling workers their workload is harder or they can’t go on vacation or get a raise because of fellow employees who leave or go on maternity leave.. In reality, these are all normal aspects of managing a business that employers should plan for, and their failure to do so is not the fault of their workers. Much like in Squid Game, it benefits managers and owners if workers are too busy being mad at each other to have time or energy to fight the system and those who make unjust rules in the first place.

Squid Game’s Managers

The Front Man insists the game is fair, gruesomely hanging the dead bodies of those involved in the organ harvesting scheme because they traded medical knowledge for advanced intel on the game. However, like capitalism, there are many ways that the system is clearly rigged, no matter what the people at the top insist. There’s the obvious corruption in the organ harvesting ring, but even at its “purest” form, the game is not equitable. Sometimes the managers and soldiers in red jumpsuits stand by when unfair things happen, like Deok-su and his cronies stealing food. At other times, the people in charge intervene in player squabbles, like enforcing nonviolence during marbles and elections but encouraging violence at other times. They especially set things up to their own advantage, such as cutting the lights so the players couldn’t see the glass in the penultimate game, or the way they set up the election. Everyone knew how everyone else voted, they shared the total amount of money immediately beforehand, in an attempt to sway votes, calling to mind Amazon’s scare tactics before the recent unionization vote.

Culture

Squid Game Competitions, As Played By BTS

By Kayti Burt

Movies

Squid Game: Best Deadly Competition TV Shows & Movies to Watch Next

By Kayti Burt and 3 others

Ultimately, much like any manager/employer, the Front Man’s insistence on fairness has nothing to do with the actual value of equality, but rather the capitalist need to ensure betters are happy with the stakes and their chance at a favorable outcome.

Even the workers, soldiers and managers in red jumpsuits, who seem to be in charge, are ultimately only in power (and alive) so long as they serve the needs of the system. Like so many low-level managers, many wield their tiny amount of power ruthlessly, shooting players with impunity or running their organ harvesting side gig. It soon becomes clear that they’re as expendable as players, if not moreso, and the Front Man shoots them without hesitating. A player asks (and it’s too bad we never learned) what “they” did to the people in red jumpsuits to get them to run this game, but it’s not too hard to guess. They seem to be very young men, who likely needed money and wouldn’t be missed if they never returned.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The biggest trick capitalism ever pulled was convincing workers it’s a zero-sum game, that anything we want but don’t have is the fault of someone else who “took it” from us. Within the game, that means every player was a living obstacle to the money, and that Gi-hun should kill his childhood friend to succeed and celebrate when he’s done. But as we see after he “wins,” even without taking Sang-woo’s life himself, the money isn’t worth it. The greater success would have been both men walking out of the arena alive.

The post Squid Game’s Scathing Critique of Capitalism appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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sebastianshaw · 3 years

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Hey there @vvithteeth! So, this isn’t EXACTLY what you asked for the readlist to focus on, but I think it’s worth checking out all the same for a general sense of Emma’s history leading up to her current character!

EVIL 80s EMMA She’s not good reference for who Emma is NOW, but a good look at what she used to be, and what she’s overcome. I think looking at Emma when she was at her worst, helps one appreciate her at her best. If you see what she had to rise above in herself, you understand the self that she’s fighting back, you have a better appreciation for the kinds of things she’s tempted towards---and the kinds of things she no longer does. X-Men (1st series) #129-131 is her introduction, as she tries to recruit Kitty Pryde to her school before Xavier does. One of the most chilling moments, for me personally, is when she threatens to destroy Storm’s mind so that she will be “human only in physical form” And then Jean drops a house on her, which is why she’s not involved in the Dark Phoenix saga, as she was still recovering. Emma continues trying to get Kitty and other kids into her clutches in Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #180 and New Mutants (1st series) #15-17, but in New Mutants (1st series) #38-40 she finally manages it by exploiting their current fucked-up state and having her student Empath use his powers to manipulate Magneto. But when the kids decide to return to Xavier’s school, Emma allows them to do so without a fight, and just tells them that they’ll always have a place with her if they need it. Which seems nice, but then her thought balloons reveal that this is just so the kids won’t believe it when Magneto tells them she’s evil. Firestar #1-4: Whoa mama, Emma is at max abusive here. See, she desires to eliminate Selene, and to this end she trains a young mutant she names Firestar. She does so by manipulating the girl, isolating her, convincing her that she NEEDS Emma to help her control her powers or else she’s dangerous to others, and even KILLS HER PET HORSE. Emma is someone who says “I love children. Teaching is my life.” and she MEANS IT, she has a genuine call to teach and her love for her students is her driving force, but here we see how she USED to treat her students. Then put her against who she is now, it’s a huge contrast. Honestly, I don’t know why SOME WRITERS want to erase her growth by pretending she was Actually Good All Along but yeah, here’s Bad Emma. This is who she fights. This is what she has risen above. EMMA’S BACKSTORY ISSUES Emma’s history is. . . kind of multiple choice. She tells one version in Generation X #24, but this doesn’t fit at all with the Emma Frost miniseries that came out from 2003 -2004, which also doesn’t exactly fit with “X-Men Origins: Emma Frost” single-issue backstory. I personally would read the “X-Men Origins” one and at least the beginning of the miniseries, specifically the parts that deal with her home life. The reason is that both of these show how unhealthy Emma’s home was growing up, and how that made her who she is. When I saw I think Emma is “wired” to be a villain, I don’t mean I think she was born like that, but as in, I think her environment trained her to become like that. It’s kind of like how a lot of personality disorders aren’t something a person is born with, but come from being in a shitty environment where certain behaviors will help you survive better, and then even once that situation is over, you can’t get rid of those behaviors because it’s how your brain is wired now. That’s how I read Emma---she came out of this toxic, duplicitous environment of manipulation and abuse where she and her siblings were set against each other, and that’s now her default for how she interacts with the world, even though she was originally just a sweet little nerd who only wanted to be a teacher. The “Origins” one features a generic Shitty Abuser Shaw and isn’t as good as the more drawn-out miniseries, as it focuses more on physical abuse (like her father suddenly slapping her) to get a point across that her family is toxic, rather than the more drawn-out miniseries, which I think works better for explaining Emma’s specific brand of. . .Emma-ness. But the bit where her mother tells her that her father is hardest on her because he likes her most of all, is really important I think, since that reflects her relationship later with the Hellions, which is also shown in this. Because Emma is cruel to the Hellions, even though she loves them, and in fact because she loved them. Her love for them and her agony over their deaths is what drives her to join the X-Men in the first place. As for which origin story is true. . .I think the miniseries one is probably MOST true, as it’s the only one that Emma herself isn’t telling as a story. But as the friend who helped me assemble this list puts it, “ Think of any origin story of Emma's as "a sort of fairy tale, a parable," where it's the theme that matters, not the precise events or timeline “ 90s EMMA Emma spent most of the 90s teaching Generation X. I don’t remember a lot of stuff for specifically what I’m talking about with her, but here are a couple issues that strike me as significant. Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #311-314: In Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #281-284, the Hellions were killed and Emma Frost was left in a coma, her body taken care of by the X-Men. This is when she wakes up, takes over Iceman’s body, and goes on a rampage thinking she’s the prisoner of the X-Men. When she finds out what happened to her Hellions, she collapses in despair and turns herself over to the X-Men. This is her turning point. This is when we found out Emma Frost had a soul. That she LOVED the Hellions. That they were not just tools. And there’s this one line in the yellow narrative boxes that really sticks out: “As the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, she spent the better part of her life traversing from one mind to another, violating the very essence of anyone she so chose. Losing herself in the memories of others. Altering, at times, the opinions of those who opposed her. This time is different. This time it is about survival. This time. . .it’s for the children.” The words are echoed when she agrees to join Krakoa's Quiet Council, after Charles and Erik tell her their plan and convince her it might just work. "One more time, then. For the children." Emma’s true love, in my opinion, isn’t Scott. Nor is it Namor. It’s teaching. Emma becomes the teacher to Generation X, as mentioned, and in Generation X (1st series) #18-19, during the Onslaught crisis, she’s so terrified of losing them like she did the Hellions, that she snapped, took the kids to a safehouse in Canada, and put them under her telepathic control for their own safety. This is an Emma who has learned that abusing her students isn’t the right way, but still doesn’t respect their autonomy or consent even as she’s desperately trying to protect them, and has to learn from Monet (who is. . . .actually not Monet) that this isn’t the right way to do it either. Emma did not grow up with adult models who showed her how to love and care for a child, she has to figure it out herself, and it’s a rocky journey at times, even though she has the best of intentions. I think this is a good issue to show an Emma who is in the process of evolving. She’s getting better, but she still hasn’t got it “right” yet. CURRENT-ERA EMMA Emma really becomes the Emma we know with Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in the early 2000s. This is where she starts affecting a British accent, calling everyone darling, and the delightfully witty Queen of Mean while also still a devoted teacher with trauma over losing her students. She always was witty and a little mean, but Morrison takes these traits up to 11 and gives Emma the foundation of what a lot of writers would build upon. It’s also when she begins her telepathic affair/seduction of Scott, which is a more than slightly problematic dynamic, as I’ve discussed. Also, this is when she got her now-famous diamond form. We get a lot of lovely Emma nastiness in this series. New X-Men #128-139 all have lots of great moments for her where she’s just WICKED yet still on the side of the angels, and New X-Men Annual 2001 starts us off. However, character-wise, I think what really comes out here is Emma going from blaming her past actions on substances (she tells Scott in the New X-Men Annual 2001 that she just probably out of her mind on drink and drugs all those times she was doing bad things) to being forced to face her past and herself for the first time when confronted by Jean & the Phoenix in New X-Men #139. It’s the first time we get a look at what Emma’s family and home life was like, as well as the first time she’s established as having a brother, but more than that is the emotion that gets brought in. This is also when Morrison decided to retcon the Hellfire Club as a strip joint (which I hate and also shows up in Emma’s “Origins” story) but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Jean makes Emma face all her flaws and pain and nasty, most vulnerable parts of herself. Emma is left mentally broken...then one page later, physically, shattered by a diamond bullet that we later find out was fired by none other than Esme, the Stepford Cuckoo whom Emma later says reminded her most of herself. There is definitely poetic symbolism there. As my friend put it “This cycle of her students dying and Emma losing it and trying again but never facing the roots of her issues goes on and on until her roots literally kill her, and Jean of all people resurrects her. Jean, who saw right through Emma, saw something there worth saving, and literally and metaphorically put her back together again.” The next place I’d go is Astonishing X-Men, which is the first time Emma and Kitty work together. Kitty HATES Emma at this point, because, as she points out, Emma is the villain in her origin story. And Emma KNOWS this. That’s why she WANTS Kitty there. She knew that Kitty would keep an eye on her, wouldn’t trust her, and that’s what Emma WANTS, because Emma doesn’t trust HERSELF. So this shows that Emma KNOWS her moral compass is a very flawed one, and that she WANTS to be better so consciously that she’s getting someone she knows doesn’t like or trust her to be around because she knows she’ll watch her like a HAWK. This also means Emma is admitting she can fail, and giving some control to someone else. There’s. . . so much that happens from here. Utopia. Phoenix Five. The Terrigen Mists shit. Secret Empire. I feel like there are probably great Emma readlists out there that include these, but honestly I just kinda zoned out through a lot of it. These are some additional read lists for her I found: https://lornahs.tumblr.com/post/87230882649/where-to-start-reading-emma-frost-lets-start https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/2bwwok/emma_frost_reading/ It’s definitely a LOT and I wish you the best of luck tackling it! Also, I wouldn’t feel you have to read EVERYTHING, or incorporate everything into your depiction. Pick and choose what you feel works best for your version!

#out of shirt #readlist

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livinglikearoyal · 5 years

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K-drama Recommendations: Nov. 2019

One of you asked for some K-Drama recommendations and here you are! Keep in mind that I watched some of these quite a while ago so the plot isn’t as fresh in my mind as I’d like. I tried to keep the list to K-dramas that are fairly easy to find either on Netflix or Hulu. I’d love to hear your opinions on these and any recommendations you have for me! Also, these aren’t necessarily in any sort of order...but I will say the top 10 that were described are ones that I will probably rewatch at some point because I enjoyed them so much.

Chicago Typewriter (Netflix)

Summary: This one is hard to summarize without giving away the storyline. It follows a group of three characters through two eras: the 1930s Japanese occupation of Korea and then the present timeline. The characters’ reincarnated selves are brought together seemingly by fate and struggle to find out the truth of the past lives.

Why I liked it: Netflix almost did me dirty on this one. The summary and preview that popped up were not intriguing to me at all. However, it said I’d be interested in this (98%) so I figured I’d give it a shot. Boy...was this a journey. I absolutely fell in love with the characters and I loved how there wasn’t a “weak link” in the trio. They all brought something unique and important to the dynamic of the show. The acting is spectacular and they really allowed these characters to grow. The storyline can be predictable at times...but how they get there is unexpected. The ending had me in happy tears. 10/10 will watch again!

Romance is a Bonus Book (Netflix)

Summary: This kdrama follows Kang Dani, a 30-something mother, and her journey to find herself after a divorce. She reenters the workforce after being a housewife and finds herself at a popular publishing company as a temporary worker (I believe it was an internship). This company just happens to have one of her childhood friends as one of the co-owners and editors-in-chief. That doesn’t make it any easier on her and the series follows her through the hardships and triumphs of finding her independence.

Why I liked it: The title says it all. The romance is just the cherry on top for this storyline. It really follows Kang Dani and looks at all of the challenges that people of various demographics face: single parents, “older” individuals trying to find a job after a time away (and while competing with the younger folks), women in general, etc. I was going through a bit of a quarter-life crisis when I stumbled upon this...questioning my job, my love life (or lack thereof), the expectations that I was facing...and it really helped ease a lot of the anxiety. Plus, Kang Dani and Cha Eunho are absolutely adorable working alongside each other. The ending credits of the final episode got me too. This is the one that I couldn’t help to rave about to my coworkers that have never watched a kdrama in their lives.

Strong Girl Do Bong-Soon (Netflix)

Summary: Bong-Soon was born with superhuman strength like the other women in her family and she aspires to become a video game creator--making a game with a strong female character like herself. In real life, she tries to be more “girly” and “delicate” but it doesn’t always work. One thing leads to another and she finds herself hired as a bodyguard to the CEO(?) of a video game company and also tries to find a kidnapper that is threatening her neighborhood.

Why I liked it: Strong female lead...duh! :) But in all honesty, I don’t remember all of the details from this one as I watched it a long while ago. I remember it being funny, sweet, inspiring and suspenseful. I loved the main three characters too!

Hello, My Twenties (Netflix)

Summary: A group of female college students learns and grows while living together. Each character has their own backstory, secrets, and hardships. The five bond through the various hardships, traumas, and successes that come their way.

Why I liked it: 5 strong women finding their way in the world. They struggle with so many realistic things: temptations, poverty, insecurities in their love life, an apartment ghost, an attractive neighbor. It was a fun and heartfelt journey. Realistic. You can definitely learn something from this one! Once again, my single self enjoyed that it wasn’t relying on a love story to draw the plot forward also.

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes (Hulu)

Summary: Kim Moo Young has lived a traumatic life and is rolling with the punches. He has also forgotten many of his childhood memories. When he happens upon Jung So Min, he doesn’t think anything of it. They grow on each other and eventually enter a relationship, much to the disapproval of her brother, a homicide detective. He believes Kim Moo Young is more sinister than he lets on.

Why I liked it: Just looking at clips/photos/quotes from this drama still tugs on my heartstrings. This one made me an emotional MESS. Seo In Guk is PHENOMENAL as Moo Young. Absolutely phenomenal. His character is so cold and detached--flawed--but he still makes the viewer connect with him. The storyline could be cliche (amnesia, secrets, etc), but they execute it so well. Each episode is a cliff-hanger and you get so emotionally invested in the characters, Moo Young especially, that you just stay up all night binging it...knowing that you are on a train that is heading straight for heartbreak. I will definitely rewatch when I’m in my feelings.

One Spring Night (Netflix)

Summary: Lee Jung-In is a librarian who happens to meet Yoo Jiho at the pharmacy where she buys a remedy to her hangover but forgets her wallet. He tells her to pay him back later and pays for a taxi. She is in a long-term relationship with a very well-off gentleman and is battling with pressure to get married from both her family and her significant other, but she has her doubts. This meeting with Yoo Jiho makes her question marriage even more as she begins to fall for him. Another issue, he is a single father and is looked down upon by their society and her family because of it.

Why I liked it: I always love a show where they go against the norms. I fell in love with Yoo Jiho immediately and his son even more so. It is real. The conversations are thought-provoking. The love is sweet.

Just Between Lovers (a.k.a. Rain or Shine) (Netflix)

Summary: Two individuals who lost their loved ones in a tragic mall collapse meet each other after there is news that a new mall is being built in the same location. Lee Gang-Doo was an aspiring soccer player when he lost his father (a construction worker) in the mall collapse and his legs were injured, ruining his dream. He has become a bit of a “bad boy”. Ha Moon-Soo was at the mall with her younger sister when it collapsed. Ha Moon-Soo survived; her sister did not. The two characters find out that their lives are more interwoven than they thought and work to figure out how they can stop another traumatic event from happening in the same location.

Why I liked it: It had mystery. It had trauma. It had love. These two main characters are complete opposites on the outside but their traumas bring them together and they make an awesome team. Another one that really tugs on your heartstrings!

Black (Netflix)

Summary: Black is a detective possessed by the Grim Reaper. Ha-Ram can see shadows of death. These two struggle to save the lives of people, breaking the rules of heaven. (from AsianWiki)

Why I liked it: It has been quite a while since I watched this one. It was my first Korean mystery show. This is one that you can’t watch when you are distracted...you need to have your eyes on the screen at all times or you are going to miss something important. It was suspenseful and interesting. I’m not sure if it is one I will rewatch, but it is definitely worth the first time!

Vagabond (Netflix)

Summary: This is a newer addition to Netflix. Cha Dalgun is a stuntman that has taken in his nephew after he was abandoned by his mother. Their relationship becomes strained as his nephew begins to see how much Cha Dalgun hadn’t wanted a child before him and doesn’t have the finances to live a prosperous life. When his nephew dies in a tragic plane crash alongside the rest of his soccer team, we begin to see how much the boy meant to Cha Dalgun. When some video clips shared on the cloud make Dalgun suspect malicious intent in the plane crash, our story begins. He meets Go Haeri, a member of the NIS, when the bereaved families fly in to collect their deceased loved ones. A story of political corruption, big business, terrorism, doubt, and crime-fighting ensues.

Why I liked it: This one isn’t completed on Netflix yet so I don’t know the ending, but it is definitely suspenseful and you find yourself trying to figure it all out and cheering on or booing at the characters. The characters of Cha Dalgun and Go Haeri both won my heart early on and now I’m hoping their ship sails! Each episode leaves you on the edge of you seat.

Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung (Netflix)

Summary: Goo Hae Ryung is still single in her late twenties and is seen as a sort of misfit as she seeks knowledge rather than a husband. She becomes a female historian in the Joseon Dynasty. Prince Yirim has been living a life away from society, writing love stories that are popular but forbidden by the government. The two happen upon each other in a book store where she speaks poorly of his writing/genre. As they come to be familiar with each other through their positions, they work to uncover the secrets that the rulers would prefer to keep hidden.

Why I liked it: The cast of characters is spectacular. While Hae Ryung and Yirim are the leads, there are so many supporting characters that catch your attention and win over your heart or make you absolutely hate them. They also aren’t all the boring, simple, support characters. They are so complex that this seems more like a slice of life piece rather than a drama. The storyline is interesting, especially to someone with little to no knowledge about the Joseon dynasty, Hae Ryung stays strong and independent while also showing her vulnerability. Yirim puts off a clueless aura but is really a strong character. Did I mention the characterization is amazing?

A Few Honorable Mentions...

Something in the Rain (Netflix)

Memories of the Alhambra (Netflix)

When the Camellia Blooms (Netflix)

Descendants of the Sun (Hulu)

Thirty but Seventeen (Hulu)

What's Wrong with Secretary Kim (Hulu)

#chicago typewriter #romance is a bonus book #strong woman do bong soon #hello my twenties #the smile has left your eyes #one spring night #just between lovers #rain or shine #black #vagabond #rookie historian goo hae ryung #kdrama #recommendations #livinglikearoyal recommends #netflix #hulu

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lonestarpost · 3 years

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April 26, 2021~ Masterlist ~ Issue 12

Episode Review

by @lonestarbabe

9-1-1: Lone Star’s ninth episode of season two breaks the hiatus with one of the season’s strongest episodes; in this episode, the showrunners prioritize quality storytelling (many thanks to writer Tonya Kong), and while the episode focuses heavily on past events, it creates an atmosphere that allows extensive character development moving forward. The episode shows viewers Grace and Judd’s story, and it does so in a way that highlights their bright future and how they have built a healthy, happy future together by first creating a solid foundation for themselves. “Saving Grace” stands out because of its attention to detail and the complex dynamics it beautifully fleshes out. The episode is rooted in humanity; the characters are not perfect, but through those flaws, viewers see the power of interpersonal relationships and the ability of people to save one another in a myriad of ways.

Throughout the episode, Judd is lost, but one grounding force saves him from his demons: his wife, Grace Ryder. As the episode kicks off, Judd is a young kid joyriding with his friend. As Judd sits behind the wheel, a tragic accident causes his friend to die, and Judd is left with a wealth of guilt and self-doubt. Despite Grace being in grave danger after the accident, during the entirety of the episode, it is Judd who needs saving from the complex emotions that haunt him. When Judd is in danger, Grace is there for him, even when she is a hospital bed. Judd wants to take revenge on the drunk driver who drove him and Grace off the road, but then, Grace wakes up, and Judd comments that Grace has saved the drunk driver. Before that, before Grace and Judd have met face to face, they begin correspondence when Judd calls a Christian crisis hotline that Grace works at as she finishes school. Seeing their relationship develop over the phone shows the deep connection that the couple has, and in Judd’s darkest moments, Grace was there for him, and her voice saved him from his own self-destruction.

After reciting Psalm 31, which Judd has tattooed on his hand, Grace says, “None of us are perfect. It’s by Grace that we’re saved,” and this line expertly reinforces the themes of the episode. Just before he nearly beats the drunk driver who ran him and Grace off the road, we see Judd getting the tattoo, which shows Judd’s mindset. He is thinking about Grace and how she has saved him. Judd himself was responsible, at least in part, for somebody’s death; that guilt has made it hard for him to recover mentally, but grace has gotten him through. Even so, he struggles to extend forgiveness to the man who has hurt Grace. The reminder of his own trauma is fresh, but Judd is still a flawed, emotional person who needs tempering, and with Grace unconscious, he feels untethered. He’s back to being an angry person, who still blames himself for the death of his friend.

Judd once fought to make amends with Leigh-Ann, the mother of the kid who died in the car, and these parallels show how hard it is to forgive. But the forgiveness ultimately isn’t about giving a gift to someone who has done wrong; in this story, it is shown as a way of saving yourself. Instead of getting trapped in the bitterness, forgiveness allows the characters to heal themselves. Early in the episode, Leigh-Ann is hurt on the floor of her home; this portrayal represents how her son’s death debilitated her. She holds unto her anger, but as Judd makes amends by fixing Leigh-Ann’s fence (a white picket fence that represents the ideal American home, which has become dirty and has fallen apart since Cal’s death), and he takes a devastated property and makes it a home. After watching Judd work for a while as she recovers, Leigh-Ann finally gives Judd water, and not only does Judd make amends, but Leigh-Anne has physically recovered since we last saw her. She still has a sling on her arm, but she’s on the way to healing. Likewise, when Judd goes to see the man who nearly killed Grace, he is in the process of healing himself. He’s just gotten out of bed from his own injuries. His body is still battered, but as he backs away from the man because of Grace waking up, it marks that Judd is healing too, not just physically but he’s also learning to focus on what matters rather than the anger he feels. In the end, it is love and care that brings the character happiness, and it makes them happier to focus on the things that save them rather than what hurts them. Love, from the 126 and from Grace, keep Judd from self-destructing from his guilt and rage.

The title works on a number of levels. While it seems at first glance that the episode is about “Saving Grace” from the accident that has nearly killed her, the essence of the episode is that Grace is Judd’s “Saving Grace.” Not only that, but she is thousands of people’s “Saving Grace.” In her career, she has been a voice of reason and hope. Even when she can’t save a life, as with the astronaut in the season one finale, her voice still provides comfort and a sense of salvation to people who are hurting. It’s not just Grace that saves Judd. In many ways, Judd also sparks Grace’s own decisions. As Grace falls in love with Judd, she realizes that going to graduate school far away isn’t her calling. She doesn’t stay because of Judd, but there’s no doubt that her connection with Judd helped Grace realize that saving people was her calling. She decides to become a 9-1-1 operator, and for thousands of people, she becomes a “Saving Grace” on the other end of the line.

“Saving Grace,” is one of the best episodes of the series, and arguably, it is the most artfully written. It stands out because the details add up in a way that drives the plot and character development. It excels at showing rather than just telling the viewers the vital details of the story. Grace is an angel, and one of her greatest strengths is bringing people together and comforting them in their times of need. When she saves people, she then allows them to save countless others. Through Grace, Judd is a hero in his own right, but he is the kind that gets glory, while Grace’s role is more understated but just as important. The episode mostly focuses on Judd’s history, but when you look at it closely, the role of Grace, understated but poignant, is what stands out the most.

The Edits Edit

Some of the best edits this week that deserve all the love.

Carlos Reyes, 911 Lone Star 1.01 by @reyeslonestar is an amazing piece of fan art, and as usual, Alice is an amazing talent that we should all appreciate.

This Grace and Judd gifset by @ronenrubinstein is just WOW. I love looking at it and cannot stop!

Marjan Marwani by @alwaysablossom is soooooo pretty. I love the colors and all the details more than I can say!

SIERRA MCCLAIN as GRACE RYDER by @bucktks is an amazing edit that highlights Grace. You should also check out this one, which is equally good! Finally, take a look at this Tarlos set! (They all are amazing.)

Judd & Owen in 2x09 (Pt2) by @911dawnstar is such a well-done gifset, and I love seeing Judd and Owen being a wonderful duo. Also look at Part 1!

“We’re gonna have a new little Texan running around!” by @shoenaerts makes me swoon, and my heart can barely handle it because Grace and Judd are the definition of LOVE. This one is also beautiful.

the ryders + howdy. by @laurenkmyers makes my heart beat faster... I love it so much.

This Grace and Judd moment by @chrissiewatts makes me cry every time I see it AHHH.

These gifs by @strandtk is so amazing. I am in love with this edit! This one too!

This gif by @jessie-meili showcases Grace in the perfect way!

Group Hugs by @rafasilvas is one of my fave gifsets ever and highlights wonderful parallels of the 126 family. I’m in love.

The truth is, I think I just wanted to hear your voice. by @buckleys-diaz is soooooo dreamy and beautiful.

Fic Recs

remind us where we've been by @morganaspendragonss (hollyhobbit101)

Word Count: 564

Chapters: 1/1

“This is something, ain’t it?” Judd says, nudging Owen gently. Owen looks around Judd's backyard, taking it all in - TK and Carlos with their two kids, Judd's three milling around, their whole family gathered together in a future Owen's not sure he ever imagined even in his wildest dreams. "It's something," he agrees.

Home is wherever you are by @sixringss (buckscasey)

Word Count: 1651

Chapters: 1/1

A week after the fire, Carlos goes back to his home.Speculation for 2x12/13

Get Me off the Boat, I'm Ready to be on Land by @silvarafael (tiniestmite)

Word Count: 3966

Chapters: 1/1

Five times TK’s sobriety is tested after he arrives in Austin but he keeps it to himself, and the one time it gets so bad that he tells someone.

The Way Our Horizons Meet (chapter 1) by @chicgeekgirl89 (Writeallnight)

Word Count: 1500

Chapters: 1/3 (WIP)

Carlos' perspective through the aftermath of T.K.'s shooting. Follows the events of episodes 1x08-1x10.

You Found Me (Did You Ever Doubt I Would?) (Chapter 10) by @doctornineandthreequarters (doctornineandthreequarters)

Word Count: 2736

Chapters: 10/? (standalone works)

Tarlos college au

#masterlist #911 lone star #lone star post #issue 12

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icharchivist · 3 years

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Perhaps random but I think it would have been neat if the kid survived and Siegfried had to figure out how to be the main parental figure to a newly orphaned child (and the kid having found family with all the Knights and chickadees)

oH i lOVe the idea actually????

ok actually this. this inspired me a lot so, under the cut some thoughts about it.

Like, especially with the guilt... I think the thing with SIEGFRIED event is that since everyone was dead, he couldn't let the guilt weight on him and he had to move on yaknow? but seeing that Gunther was alive brought all the guilt back.

so i feel like if Licht had survived, Siegfried probably would have to wrestle even more with his guilt. There's also the fact that it means that right after his parents got brutally murdered, Siegfried would have taken Licht on the battlefield to finish it up, protecting the kid... could even see perhaps putting him in Vane's care (since he was the one who didn't have a responsibility to fight and Siegfried already trusted him at that point) for the end of the battle.

Meaning, that the Knights would have probably set themselves as close to Licht as early as that point. Lancelot and Percival would ask questions to Siegfried, which would be painful to answer about, but all of them would probably immediately have involved themselves with Licht to lighten up the burden on their captain's shoulders.

And Siegfried would have done as much as possible for that kid. Making sure he grew up well. With also the constant crisis of "i don't know how to raise a CHILD i grew up in the WILDs", and at this point he wasn't close enough from the Knights to really just, turn to them.

But i could see especially the vice captains notice his turmoil even if Siegfried isn't ready to tell them he doesn't know what he's doing, and both would start to involve themselves, pick up the little details Siegfried let through showing he's in distress and would work with it.

i'm not making a tangente i refuse but the idea of Percival knowing that this kid basically had his mother bleed out next to him because of a rebel civil war he was next to?? great now he worked his way from triggered to dotting uncle thank you very much for your time

to make it fair with the other two: Lancelot would also try to help out as much as possible and honestly i feel like Vane would have been around much more because Lancelot would talk about Licht to him in their downtime and i can see Vane force his way in in the captain's office because he made cookies and he thinks the kid needs it. (and well honestly with the fact Vane's parents ALSO died in front of him, he'd probably also be extremely dotting on top of his usual "good with kids" attitude)

Lancelot is the only one i don't have a clear idea of what he'd do as a babysitter type tbh (he’d give the kid a blade and probably propose to train him i think, to let out his feelings, which... works but probably would have to happen slowly, like. in a few months.) but i think out of the 3 he'd probably be the one especially seeking to know Siegfried's feelings and how he's holding up.

And i think Siegfried would probably open up earlier to them, and learn from them as he can, while also seeking guidance with King Josef and reading up a lot of books about it.

I also think there will be a conversation with Josef about how Siegfried mentioned that he expected he'd die any day so he didn't use to build a future, right? I think this is the sort of things that it's something Siegfried would reflect on again with Josef having Licht around, because now it is becoming clear to Siegfried that his life isn't just his own to live and die for now, but that he can't afford to die and let this kid alone again.

There's also the fact that i think Siegfried lives in the castle? as Josef's bodyguard, it's more handy, it's not like he has a house from his before-knights time and i don't really see him getting a special house when he can carry his duty in the castle. So it would be also a question of adjusting for a life for Licht in the castle as well, one that i can see Josef accept. Otherwise, Siegfried could wonder if it wouldn't be better for the kid to grow up in an actual house and probably plan moving out (which could set up a lot of guilt for later when Josef died)

But also there's the question of leaving Licht alone. because in the trauma of watching his parents die in front of him, i think Licht would also have a period of coping that would be difficult to adjust for. Even with Siegfried's best attempt to learn how to raise a child, nothing is really preparing him as how to raise a child with trauma. And i think that would be more complicated while Siegfried would also grow extremely dotting and probably hyperalert to the kid's reactions.

And Mainly i feel like in the first few months it would be difficult to leave Licht completely alone, so Siegfried would delegate as many missions he can to the vice captain in the first few months in order to stay with Licht. Eventually when Licht would have got used to the knights Siegfried would trust, there will be a rotation of taking care of him.

But i also wonder if keeping the child in the barracks is a good idea, i think the child should avoid places where fighting happens a lot in the first few months at least, lest it triggers him again.

So there would be a delicate situation to deal with in that specific period.

Overall though while it would be clumsy, Siegfried would learn how to help as much as possible. I don't think Licht would especially think that Sieg could have done anything to stop the drama from happening, but also we don't know Licht's personality at all so it's free game. Licht could initially had held a grudge against Sieg that Sieg would have to work with as well while he's helping Licht heal... so i feel like the kid would be really non verbal and sometimes a bit rebellious against Sieg early on, as a coping mechanism, until the two of them manage to communicate more. On the long run, Licht would no longer have any grudge and come to accept Sieg as a father figure.

I think eventually i could see Licht grow to want to be a knight as well, like his father and his new father were. Perhaps also in the hopes to not have the sort of things that happened to his family happen again.

NOW the other problem however lies in the fact that there's the whole "Siegfried being framed for the murder of King Josef" incident where Siegfried had to disappear on the run.

imo it's implied Sieg didn't have the time to adjust around that, since he was found on top of the corpse and had to run away immediately.

and it raises the question of what would have happened with Licht in that meantime.

So also for starter i think it would have added guilt on Sieg's conscious to think that maybe, if he didn't have to focus as much on Licht, he could have been there for the King... I mean WE know that wouldn't have changed anything, but Sieg doesn't.

Then, there's the fact Sieg really would have difficulties coming back for Licht. I'm sure people would already have told the kid of his crime, or would watch the kid closely in the hope to catch Sieg. As a result, Siegfried probably could not approach Licht at all.

if he could have, would have he taken Licht along with him on his exile...? Mhmm. I think if Licht came to find him on his own, perhaps, with a lot of protest from Sieg about making the kid a criminal with him, if Licht manages to follow his tracks.

Else if not... I could see Licht staying in the castle for a while. Percival would be gone but Vane and Lancelot would still both visit the kid i think. Both would still be aching from Sieg's betrayal but they are both mature enough to not project it on the kid after all. But both also do believe in Sieg's guilt so i feel like it would be tricky.

Like i think Licht may hold on to thinking Sieg was framed, but it would be difficult to make it through Lancelot and Vane. Lancelot was extremely stubborn on this topic and i feel like Lancelot would avoid the topic at all cost and perhaps even leave the room when it's brought up. He wouldn't want to be rude to the kid, maybe he'd lie with a smile that perhaps so, but i feel like this is the one topic he would have been able to budge from, even with Licht insisting.

So Vane would be the one trying to ease the situation with Licht, listening to him, saying that he wants to believe Sieg didn't do that either... everything is against Sieg though and he can't ignore that. But he wants to believe he's wrong.

And i think Vane's position especially, as he's not sure, would be really helpful for Licht because else everyone else would probably try to drive in his mind that Sieg is the worst and all.

I could especially see Isabella usually ignoring the kid as something that's none of her concerns, until she starts to realize what a threat he can be by thinking Sieg is innocent and talking about it loudly, or what a tool he could be against Siegfried if she plays her cards right. Thus i could see her try to manipulate Licht, drill in his head that after all, he let his parents to die, why is that surprising that he'd kill the king?

It'd be a lot for the kid to deal with, but i'd like to think that even if he became unsure, he'd stand by Siegfried. If only because, as his Dad:tm: Sieg would have talked to him about how close he was to Josef so this wouldn't add up.

In those years growing, if apart, Licht would focus even more to learn how to fight in order to find Siegfried again and get his answers.

Since Gunther and Siegfried both were knights i'm sure he would be taken into the order without problem, in a pre-Lancelot-allowing-everyone-in era of the Order. As an apprentice of course because he's still young in that timeline, but he'd work it out.

by the time of Defender's Oath, i'd picture Licht, hearing about Sieg having been seen, starting to insist to Lancelot to be let to join the patrols with them. Lancelot would probably refuse... and I think Licht would have learnt very well from Siegfried for the little time they spent together to completely disobey that order and start to tally them. He'd get his answers no matter what.

I can see Defender's Oath happening the same way, without Licht meeting with Siegfried until the end of the story, or him meeting him halfway through and learning the truth from Sieg and being relaxed. He knew it! He always believed in him he knew it!

After those events though mhmmm i don't think Siefried would like to leave the kid alone again but he did have a problem where he felt he didn't belong in the country anymore, which is why he joined the crew. I think he would have a hard time just staying in the country and would probably ask Licht if he wants to come with him. And i think we can have it in a way where Licht wants to continue his training as a knight, but also come to join the crew and visit once in a while to stay with Siegfried.

When the chickadee's crew get formed, i think Licht would be about their age wouldn't he? I think he'll probably join this special group, and kind of be the senpai of them all since he has good relationships with the knights.

I could see him not saying outright that he's linked to Siegfried: probably reminders of the time Siegfried was a parriah and Licht would have not disclosed that he was his adoptive son to try to keep a low profile. The moment the kids learn it though? especially Arthur and Mordred? Man the starry eyes are real! they'd be asking about it all the time!

Overall growing up i feel like Licht would stay more with the order than with Siegfried, in the hope to grow up as a good knight, someone who can protect others and all of that, focusing more on himself than on his family

but he'd always be grateful and loving to Siegfried and Siegfried would still be a dotting father. I can see Sieg bringing back so many things to Licht from his travels, like he does to MC in his birthday lines, especially good luck charms. They'd be really right.

And if Gunther reappears like in the event, it would be under the assumption he believes Licht died that day. Licht probably wouldn't get involved with the story of that event until the moment Siegfried goes missing, in which he starts to insist with the knights that he wants to join the mission. But hearing his own father is alive and is responsible for all of this? Would make it so conflucting for the kid to deal with.

I could see Licht staying restless but going with the Chickadee on their missions to find the alma, and come back in time to see Gunther basically torture and mind control Siegfried into a beast. I think it would cement him on Siegfried's side no matter what Gunther would say, and when he appears on the battlefield, would probably confront Gunther himself.

and there i feel like the events would be a little different as Gunther have to face the fact not only his kid is alive, but he disapproves of his actions, and refuse to believe in the guilt Gunther puts on Siegfried.

but ultimately i think Gunther would still be stubborn on his end... Unless?

that's about where i'm running out of imagination here ahah but hooooly shit 2k words on all of this.

I think it'd be interesting to see Siegfried grow to be a dad and see how Licht would grow as well. I think there's a lot of room for it to happen smoothly.

that was fun to think about at least! thanks for the ask nonny :3c

#if you're the same nonny than the percival/sandalphon post hi sorry this one inspired me more on the go DLKFJDLF #i need more brainjuice for the other but this one was fun to think about #hope you don't mind that read ahah #thanks for the ask and take care!!#ichafantalks gbf #ichablogging gbf #ichablogging 4kishi #ichareply #anonymous #ichablogging gbfhcs

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luci-cunt · 4 years

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Tell me about Magneto🤭

MAY YOU CAN’T SEE IT BUT IM KISSING YOU SO PASSIONATELY RIGHT NOW

Ok so listeeennnn tooooo meeeee, okokokok, so a while ago I went on this James McAvoy bender--don’t ask--and I saw he was in the X-Men movies, whic hi haven’t watched since the Wolverine movies/ Last Stand when I was like, actually a baby. So anyways I flipped them on thinking “yeah what could go wrong?” except I watched them in the wrong order

Anyways here’s an essay on why neither Erik or Prof X was right and the actual answer would be to compromise and these movies how how because they’re both too stubborn and couldn’t it destroyed their friendship and fucked everything up.

Also the fact that X-Men: First Class is the best Villain origin story to ever cross the screen.

Ok so spoilers ahead for X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: First Class

Now, it should be noted that I’m no an X-Men expert I just love these two movies.

So for some context: First Class and Days of Future Past are both kind of prequels, except DoFP is a prequel-sequel?? becuase of time travel?? I’ll explain don’t worry. The point is, they take place in the past where all the characters are younger. James McAvoy plays Professor X (who I’ll just be calling X for this whole thing), Michael Fassbender plays Magneto (aka Erik), oh and Jennifer Lawrence plays Mystic--who will be appearing in this essay XDD.

Alright so first of all have a plot summary: DoFP is about Wolverine getting sent back in time so he can convince a younger Prof X to stop Raven (aka Mystic) from getting caught by this guy Trask who then uses her DNA to create super weapons that irradiate all mutants. The current future Wolverine is in, he, prof X, Magneto, and a few other mutants are trying their best to survive but it’s a losing battle and their only hope is to literally change the past.

This one takes place after the events of First Class, which I will now explain.

So in First Class a younger Prof X and Magneto team up to find and recruit bb mutants to X’s school because the government wants to use Mutants to help fight the Russians (oh head this takes placee in the 1960′s right before the Cuban Missile Crisis). This is essentially a Magneto origin story and also--in my opinion--the best villain origin story to ever cross the screen.

OK so now some details on our main characters:

Magneto/ Erik Lehnsherr: a literal holocaust survivor who’s only goal in the begining of the story is hunting/ killing nazi’s, specifically one nazi who tortured him specifically and I will get into him later don’t worry.

Professor X: super smart rich white boy with a heart of gold but also enough naivete to make a lamb look like a Stephen King character.

Already you can see very stark differences between the two of them. Erik is set up as being a staunch pessimist while X is a vivid optimist, and that makes sense. X’s grown up sheltered and never wanting for anythign while Erik suffered a trainwreck of the greatest traumas in human existence hitting him over and over and over again from like age fucking 9.

Ok also tehre’s J-Law’s character Raven, who is a mutant that can change her skin to look like anythign she wants it to but her actual form is blue/ scaly/ “not pretty” (bullshit but ok). She met X when she broke into his house one night to steal some food and then they became friends, their relationship will become important later but for now that’s all u need to know.

ok so anyways, in the begining of First Class Erik is hunting + killing Nazi’s, specifically looking for this one called Schmidt because when Erik was little he and his family were carted away to a concentration camp where Schmidt witness Erik use his metal bending powers and decided to “train” him. aka physically/ mentally abuse him for years. The whole thing starts with Schmidt trying to get Erik to lift a metal coin with his mind, when he can’t (because he’s a child who didn’t even know he had his powers until literally hours ago) Schmidt puts his mother’s life on the line and when he still can’t Schmidt kills her. This sends Erik it’s a rage and he crushes some nazi heads but then Schmidt is still standing and mentions how “oh gotcha, so it’s rage and pain that’s the key to your powers huh?” anyways this tidbit and the coin will become important later trust me--

Meanwhile Prof X is graduating from Oxford/ generally being an idiot pretty boy. He’s a telepath who knows about his powers and has used them from an early age. He also wrote some big paper on mutants, which gets the attention of an FBI agent who witnesses the villains being mutants and wants his advice

However, the villains just so happen to be Schmidt, who’s going by “Shaw” now, so when X and the agents catch up to him Erik is already there and on a mission to murder his ass. Some bs happens, Erik tries to pull a submarine out of the water but can’t (T-T this will be important) and X jumps into the water to stop him because the mental stress is literally killing him.

That’s how they meet.

It’s important to note: up until this point, Erik didn’t know there were other mutants, so meeting X, who’s friends with Raven, is kind of a big deal for him. He and X become very fast friends and also have a very homoerotic montage where they become dads for a bunch of mutant teenagers, because they realize they can use X to track all these baby mutants, collect them, and train them so they don’t grow up fearing their powers.

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Anyways, the other thing about this is that now that Erik has this newfound group of people that are just like him, he’s opening up, and X is helping him realize he’s actually so much more powerful when he taps into happy memories rather than fueling himself on pain and rage. This scene always makes me sob oh my god--

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Also, fellas--is it gay to “access the brightest cortex” of your homies memories and remind him that hate and pain are not good motivators before reminding him that he has good memories he can draw on and showing him that his life has not been entirely painful?

YEs, the answer is yes are u shitting me??

ok so anyways--something to note about this is that X and Erik are both very protective of all their new kids, but Erik is especially so. I’m going to be getting into this more but just tab thsi thought for later :)

Now, the plot’s kicking up a bit, because it’s at this point that Erik and X capture one of Shaw’s (aka the nazi’s) main lackies and they question her until she gives them the info that Shaw’s planning on using the Cuban Missile Crisis tensions to start a nuclear war to wipe out all humans so that only mutants survive in the new world.

Obviously they want to stop him, but also, you can kind of tell that Erik is not totally against this plan, which only gets to be more later but that’s for later.

Right now I wanna take a quick break to talk about Raven--aka Mystic, aka J-Law. She and X were childhood friends and she kind of clung to him because she doesn’t have family/ anyone she can really be herself around besides him.

X insistently says throughout the movie he sees her as a sister, but it’s kinda obvious she’d be down to fuck. She has this big plotline where she keeps trying to get X to understand why it’s so frustrating for her to have to be using energy to look “human.” Because her natural form is the one with the blue skin. X doesn’t understand this because his power is easy to hide, it’s simple for him to just fake-human and have no one be any wiser, Raven, however, doesn’t have that luxury and when she tries to explain this to X it just flies over his head, insisting she hide her natural self to better fit in if that’s what she really wants.

Queue Erik, who comes in as a king of self love. He’s pretty blunt about it, but his point is basically “you’re wasting energy by constantly pretending you’re something you’re not--stop” and she responds essentially with “yeah but then no one will like me” to which he responds “then make them.”

Raven’s relationship with both the boys is used through both First Class and DoFP to really highlight their faults. X believes humans and mutants can coexist but he thinks we go about doign that by completely ignoring the pages of history of abuse mutants have suffered--and it’s mostly because he hasn’t experienced it.

Erik on the other hand will do everything and anything he possibly can to protect his new family/ people, and in his head that means exterminating any and all threats. By the end of the movie--humans become one of those threats.

The point of this whole ramble is that: they both represent utter opposites, BUT, X’s blind optimism and Erik’s blind pessimism are equally bad.

Ok so back to plot for a second to prove this.

Shaw is revealed to be a mutant himself and he also has a helmet that can block telepathy. (yes it’s the magneto helmetjasjd;fkjaskl;dfjasldkj jsut wait).

His plan’s complicated but basically: he’s going to poke America and Russia until they pop and incite a nuclear war. And it works. The whole pre-climax of the film sees X, Erik, Raven, and the other mutants all working double time to stop Shaw’s plan (AND IT INVOLVES ERIK SUCCESSFULLY PULING A SUBMARINE OUT OF THE WATER!!! BECAUSE NOW HE’S USING HAPPINESS INSTEAD OF ANGER/ PAIN!!!).

Anywho, they’re doing all this, but then some bullshit happens, the plane they’re on crashes oh and -- yeah there’s this part where Erik uses himself as a seatbelt for X it’s fantastic but anyways--

This is finally the climax of the film.

Also possibly the greatest scene in film history in my humble opinion.

Because listen--in order to stop Shaw they need the helmet off of him so that X can telepathically freeze his ass and they can arrest him or whatever. So they split up--Erik rushes into the wreckage to find Shaw and X stays behind ready to freeze the guy as soon as the helmet comes off but--

Well, vengence is just too tempting.

So when Erik gets Shaws helmet off, X freezes the guy, and he’s ecstatic, at least until he realizes Erik plans on killing Shaw.

He’s pleading with Erik because this is vengence and he can’t chose that but Erik just puts on the helmet and--taunts Shaw, pulling out the coin Shaw taunted him with all those years ago and in a mimickry of the game Shaw forced him to play as a child and killed his mother over--he slowly floats the coin at Shaws head, telling him “I’m going to count to ten, and all you have to do is move.”

But he can’t--because X is holding him--and that’s the point, Erik wants him as helpless as he was, and X can’t let his hold on Shaw go because that would mean putting Erik in danger but he’s also in Shaws head so he feels the coin go through his head as though Erik was doing it to him and the fucking cinematography in this scene is so fuaksdjf;laksjd;fjasd;lkfjadsl;asdjf;ljL:DKJFL:SDKJFL:D KFUCKKKKK

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This scene is cinematic perfection don’t fucking lOOK at me unless you agree.

T-T and then, it only gets worse, because now Erik’s finally finished his original purpose--killing the man who killed his mother and ruined his life--and now he’s got a new one, aka protecting his new family aka the mutants.

AND HE’S ONLY PROVEN RIGHT THAT HUMANS ARE A THREAT BECAUSE THEY TURN AND TRY TO KILL ALL THE MUTANTS IN THE PLANE CRASH AND JSUT--

And so he stops all the missiles flying their way, and turns them around on the humans and X has to stop him but he’s not listening and the rawest fucking line in the whole movie comes when X says

“There’s hundreds of men on those ships--innocent men. They’re just following orders!”

And Erik simply replies, “I’ve been at the mercy of men ‘just following orders’--never again.”

And then he goes to blow up the shipsthen one of the other characters goes to shoot Erik and he deflects the bullet wtihout thinking right. into. X’s. back.

Paralysing him.

And just akjd;fjasdflkjasd;lfkj this scene speaks for itself

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Listen just--akjdsf;ljasdlk jguys this movie has no right being this good.

And then the movie closes off with X and Erik literally begging one another to just see it their way--because they both want so badly to be on the same side but they’re too stubborn and they refuse to see compromise and just ajkdf;lja;sdkfja;sdljkfsadlkf

Ok I realize now that I barely talked about DoFP but this is already so long. The major things I was going to bring up was teh absolutely fantastic bitter exes energy that McAvoy and Fassbender bring to that movie it’s excellent but also the fact that X is literally the only person Erik goes out of his way not to kill despite standing directly in the way of Erik’s goal.

Like, you remember my whole deal with Raven??? yeah that’s x10 in DoFP (which takes place quickly after this movie) yeah so her and Erik are close, and shown to be close, but the second he thinks she endangers his fam he literally 180′s so quick and tries to straight up murder her.

BUT HE FUCKING BENDS THE BULLET AROUND X’s HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! X!!!!!!!!!! WHO’S LITERALLY 100% AGAINST HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST

Ok, that’s all. By the way I don’t want to like, up your expecations too much because I actually kind of hate X-Men: First Class almost as much as I love it?? it’s very..... of it’s era, and cheesy, and dumb--but fucking magneto you guys holy SHIT

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missmentelle · 4 years

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Hi. I’m reading your FAQ page and see that you’ve listed the suicide crises in First Nation communities as something you know about but rarely get asked about. As a fellow Canadian, I’d love to hear, based on your experiences, what’s helping the most in these communities? (Including but not limited to any recommendations for agencies accepting charitable donations.) Thanks!

Figuring out how to solve the suicide crisis among Canada’s First Nations communities, particularly Northern communities, is more of a PhD thesis than a Tumblr ask - there are no simple solutions here, and I certainly don’t have all the answers. This is more of a systemic issue than a matter of charitable donations; the issues in these communities are deep and complex, and what’s needed is widespread policy change, rather than intervention from charitable agencies. A lot of this crisis is deeply rooted in the fact that First Nations communities have been intentionally prevented from becoming self-sufficient and have been forced into a position of dependency on the federal government - trying to fight this crisis with charitable donations is well-meaning, but ultimately makes the issues of dependency and lack of autonomy even worse.

The specific needs and issues of First Nations people vary from community to community, and I am certainly not in a position to speak for any of them, or make absolute statements about what they need to solve this crisis. However, many reserves and bands have been pretty vocal about what is needed to reduce the poverty and despair in their communities - and by extension, alleviate the mental health issues. Some of the big things include:

Giving First Nations communities autonomy over their own lands. Under Canadian law, reserves are considered “crown lands” - they technically belong to the Federal government, and individuals are not allowed to own the land they live on. Again, this issue is way more complicated than can be covered in a Tumblr post, but not owning land means that homeowners cannot take out mortgages and loans, since they have nothing to offer as collateral to secure the loan - so if they want to build a house, they have to offer 100% of the building costs up front, something that most people can’t afford to do. The result is that many First Nations families live in outdated homes that are not up to building code and are dangerously crowded. Not owning the land they live on also means that First Nations people cannot build equity, and face enormous obstacles in trying to start businesses - reserve land cannot be used as collateral, which can make it next to impossible for people on reserves to get the kinds of business start-up financing that other Canadians can get. Moving off reserve is also a lot easier said than done; many reserves are quite remote, and leaving is expensive. The lack of opportunity on reserves makes it difficult for First Nations people to secure the skills and work experience needed to compete in the job market, and starting over in a new city with no connections and no money is not necessarily going to improve your situation at all. Again, the solutions here are complicated - implementing private property on reserves is not a cure-all and is not necessarily the best solution - but the current situation is unworkable, and is contributing to a severe housing and economic crisis.

Implementing high-speed internet access on reservations. This is actually a project that is being worked on now, but many remote and Northern communities in Canada have only the most basic of internet access. This is hugely crippling for those communities; it contributes to their isolation, restricts education and economic opportunities, and puts them even further behind in a job market that is increasingly tech-savvy. Implementing high-speed internet access also gives First Nations people improved access to mental health and medical professionals via Skype, or other forms of online communication.

Improved access to mental health and addiction services in remote communities. It is incredibly difficult to get mental health and addictions workers to actually stay in remote communities long-term - the conditions in these communities are harsh, the cost of living is high, and in the case of Northern communities, not everyone is equipped to deal with the “six straight months of darkness, six straight months of sunlight” thing that happens in the far north. Instead, most of these communities rely on “fly-in, fly-out” professionals, which are exactly what they sound like. A professional will fly into the community, stay for a few weeks to try to deal with the mental health crisis, and then fly out again, with a new person flying in to take their place. This makes it extremely difficult for people in these communities to get any continuity of care, and makes it all but impossible to develop a strong therapeutic relationship with one care provider. Creating much greater incentives for professionals to stay in these communities long-term and training people within these communities to provide services is something that’s sorely needed.

Addressing the water crises on reserves. Many reserves and remote communities do not have access to clean drinking water, which is absolutely unacceptable in a nation that has the world’s largest supply of fresh drinking water. There are reservations that have been under “boil water” advisories since the early 1990s, which is unacceptable - there are First Nations people who are nearly thirty years old and have never been able to safely drink the water that comes out of their taps. This is hugely degrading for people who live in these conditions, it has caused numerous health issues and generally worsened the quality of life for people in these communities, and it underscores the pain that these communities feel at having their deep connections to the land severed and being treated as second-class citizens in their own homeland. Resolving this crisis needs to be a priority.

Closing the First Nations education gap. Schools in First Nations communities are grossly underfunded compared to non-First Nations schools. As a result, First Nations schools struggle to attract and keep qualified staff, they struggle to meet the needs of an often deeply traumatized student body, and they generally struggle to provide the same caliber of education that other Canadian parents expect from their children’s schools. In urban environments, First Nations students attending mainstream public schools often face discrimination and don’t have access to the services that they need to thrive. As a result, graduation rates among First Nations youth are abysmal - 61% of First Nations people in Canada do not earn a high school diploma or equivalent by their 25th birthday. First Nations people who do graduate from underfunded First Nations schools are often well behind their peers who graduate from non-First Nations schools, which leaves them struggling to keep up when they attend university. Only 8% of First Nations adults hold a university degree, compared to 23% of the general Canadian population, and that number is even bleaker when look at First Nations people living on reservations. Not providing First Nations children with the education and the services that they need can leave them at a lifelong disadvantage, and contributes hugely to mental health issues and despair.

Ending housing and employment discrimination. First Nations people face huge amounts of discrimination when it comes to applying for jobs or looking for housing in urban areas. Even having an obviously First Nations name can get your application thrown in the trash, and First Nations people who do land interviews for jobs and apartments often find that they are treated much more harshly as soon as they show up in person and their First Nations identity is discovered. Landlords will often demand extra documentation, demand months of rent payments up-front, or ask insulting questions about the First Nations applicant’s drinking habits. Facing discrimination when you are trying to land a job or find an apartment is humiliating and degrading, and ultimately contributes to despair and mental health issues. Stronger protections for First Nations people are needed, and more resources are needed for people who’ve faced discrimination to report their experience and receive recourse.

Detangling hundreds of years of oppression, intergenerational trauma and systemic racism is not an easy task. There are no quick fixes here, and I haven’t even touched on all the issues that these communities face - there is the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis, domestic violence crises, police brutality, discrimination in the justice system, food insecurity, and so much more. I don’t have all the answers here. But I do know that we as Canadians need to decide that this is a priority. All of us - not just those of us with direct ties to these communities - need to decide that it’s fucking unacceptable that we let this happen in our country, and we need to make this an issue that we fight for. Canadian children are dying at their own hands by the hundreds; apathy is not an option. This needs to be an issue that decides elections. This needs to matter. MM

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hecohansen31 · 5 years

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Hi ! If you still do requests can you do xavier x reader where the reader was his friend or best friend before he died at camp redwood and they come to the camp to pay respects but somehow find out he’s a ghost and the readers really sad for him because he’s stuck there forever and he comforts them but also the reader keeps going back there to hang out with him ? If so then thank you xx

(A/N): Hello there, lovely!

I keep this extremely platonic, because you said friend/best friend, but if you ever want to see something more romantic, as soon as I get better I might try to work onto a Latin Nerd! Reader and Xavier, if anyone is interested!

Plus I tried to keep the gender of the reader neutral, let me know if I sucked at it or I mgiht try again or any other suggestion!

Have fun reading and thank you for requesting, I honestly love writing for Xavier!

WARNINGS: Death, Loss, Grieving, Mention of Sexual Trauma (Xavier’s Tape) and Druge Abuse, Slight Description of Murder!

Your best friend was an asshole.

But he was your asshole.

And when you had heard that he had lost his life in the Camp Redwood’s massacre your heart had stopped beating for one minute, before the glass of milk you had in your right hand escaped your hold and crashed to the ground.

At first you had thought it was a simple mistake and only when your roommate had cradled you in her arms, you had realized that he was truly gone and had screamed till your lungs had given out and exhaustion has passed over you.

You and Xavier were a rather unlikely friendship: you were the normal teen who had gone through high school being unnoticed, coming from a normal family.

You had met Xavier at an aerobic class, you had taken in college to meet other people.

Xavier was the popular guy, cooler than anybody, although he had a rather sordid past, which he had once confessed you about over too many beers and almost getting recognized from a guy at a party for his “tape”.

Your usually outgoing friend had paled and you had practically fought off the guy, after you had tried to hug your friend, and he had pushed you away, convinced that you hated him now that you knew all the truth and for the following days he had done nothing more than trying to convince you that you shouldn’t stick with him, anymore.

“I was a druggie, (Y/N)” he had mumbled, meanwhile you put all your aerobic things in your backpack, after your class.

“… Xavier you are not anymore and that is what matters” you had replied in your most sincere tone, not caring for anything but your friend being healthy and comfortable around you.

“I shot gay porn, (Y/N)” he had exclaimed once you were over at your house, since your roommate was gone and you were too scared to be alone at home, so you had invited him over, in order to have some take out and watch maybe some horror movies, since he liked so much “… and I am not even gay”.

“Xavier shut up and pass the pop-corn” and then you had heard him sniffling behind you, and when you had turned around to face him, you had found him crying with watery eyes and immediately you had moved from a sarcastic tone to a more comforting “… do you seriously think that I would judge you for something so stupid?”

“Well… everybody else would” he cowered a bit and you brought him in a sudden hug, trying to decide whether or not to tighten your grip onto him or not, whether it would scare him off or not.

But it was Xavier who gripped back into your welcoming hands.

“… I am not everybody else, Xavier” you had replied, meanwhile he had loaded his entire tears in your pretty pajama, but you hadn’t minded “… I am your best friend”.

“I know that…” he had mumbled, once he had realized you weren’t running already “… but I am a mess”.

“Well then…” you had pushed back a bit from the hug, seeing true fear in his eyes “… hi ‘I am a mess’, I am (Y/N)”.

That had gained you an elbow to your stomach, but it was worth it, just to see Xavier laugh himself silly.

Slowly you had broken apart, you hadn’t known what why and how, with certainty, probably the fact that with you both starting to work in different areas, you had found yourself around different type of people, although you would always find some time for each other, in your “busy” schedule.

That summer at Camp Redwood, you hadn’t thought it would end up so bloody and badly, although you had felt bad leaving your best friend go there alone, but you had had some work issues, which might bring you the promotion you had been aching for, since you had started your job.

“I’ll send you postcards” had smirked Xavier the day before he left for Camp Redwood, meanwhile you had just smacked his ass and told him not to get in trouble with the underage ladies.

“I am not going to be there to bail your ass out” you had promised him, before kissing his cheek goodbye and waving till his famous ‘vanta-c’ had disappeared from your sight.

Now, at his funeral, you hadn’t been able to fathom the fact that your last words to him had been that silly and halfway through the function you had to be escorted out because you had started puking, panicking, and you hadn’t even been able to utter your discourse for him.

In the end you hadn’t even known, if you would have been able to say it, since it held some kind of privacy that you weren’t able to explain to so many people who didn’t know Xavier, many, in the crowd, were strangers and some of aerobic teammates, but you were the only one who had known him, through everything.

And you hadn’t been with him that night.

Every time the Redwood massacre would come on the screen, the people around you would change channel, thinking that you didn’t want to be remembered of that, since he had been so dear with you.

What they didn’t know was that you were almost morbidly obsessive with every detail of his death, as if knowing could make you go back in time and bring him back.

It took you three years to go to Camp Redwood: the first year it had been too early, the second year you had buried yourself in your work not to think about it, and the third year you had once laughed at something because it had reminded you of something Xavier had said.

And when you had turned to tell him, you hadn’t found him.

You had cried all your tears, when you had come back home, and realized that he was gone.

Nothing for you to grip onto, and as a way to exorcise the hurt you had chosen to visit Camp Redwood, alone, at least so that you could give Xavier your own discourse and lay some flower onto the place he had died, which you knew from the obsessive attention that media and Margaret Booth, the only survivor of the carnage, had given it.

You had chosen for the bouquet of flowers red carnations, camelias and finally yellow cowslips, all flowers that you were sure Xavier would absolutely love, since they were almost as bright as Xavier’s personality.

You had wandered for the camp, feeling a sense of uneasiness, not only because you were on the scene of a massacre, but most importantly because you felt like you were being watched, the entire time, feeling the weird sensation of being constantly watched but whenever you would turn around worried, you’d see nothing.

You were just being paranoid.

When you had finally found the place of Xavier’s death, you were surprised that it held some kind of strange objects on it, almost as a weird collector’s treasure.

You had moved to remove something so that you could lay your flowers on the ground, but you had heard a shout, a rather familiar shout.

“Hey! Don’t touch my shit!”.

You remembered a similar phrase being uttered when you had once tried to clean Xavier’s room, since it had pizza’s crusts on his desk that he had once almost used it as a tissue.

You turned around, sure that you were having some trouble listening, a hallucination that went by the ears, since you had heard it happened both in desert and both when you… well…

When you were losing your mind.

But as you turned, Xavier stood in front of you, definitely much neater than a hallucination.

Although you had been the one shocked, Xavier looked at you confused, as if he hadn’t expected to see you again, not that you had thought about it, since well… he was supposed to be dead…

“(Y/N)?” he asked as if he was the one who was supposed to be surprised of seeing you there.

“You are dead” you mumbled, much more to reassure the concept to you than to actually state the obvious, meanwhile the flowers you had in your hand, fell to the ground, the beautiful petals ruining a bit, but you didn’t care, stepping closer, till…

… till you realized this wasn’t mechanically and humanly possible.

And you were more likely having some kind of psychotic breakdown.

“Yeah, I am pretty sure I am dead” he confirmed, and you were sure that whatever you had smoke on your way to the Camp Redwood must have been laced with some kind of hallucinogenic drug “… but what are you doing here?”.

Although this entire situation was impossible, the fact that Xavier was actually being a smartass about it was totally in his character.

“… you are a… ghost?” you couldn’t help but feel dumb, even more when Xavier raised an eyebrow at you in a “duh” kind of expression, meanwhile you were having an existential crisis, your knees buckling under you and you fell down, your best friend rushing to you, but not having any contact with you.

“Kind of, I mean… I did die and come back, but I am not anything like you see in those movies”.

“At least, you didn’t come back as Jason, in Friday the 13th” Xavier had forced you to watch that idiotic movie, meanwhile you screamed all your voice and Xavier giggled at your fear.

“That would have made a disservice to the world…” he replied cockily, nearing even closer once he saw that you were tearing up, his hands almost brushing next to your face, but you felt nothing more than cold air on your face, the obvious show that you it was just an hallucination “… (N/N) please don’t cry, you make an horrible face, whenever you do it and you might get wri…”.

“Xavier, did you kill the bitch that trespassed?” a female voice, announced Montana, Xavier’s ex-girlfriend, who you had a kind of stiff relationship, since she was low key jealous of your relationship with Xavier, no matter the fact that you didn’t have any romantic feelings for each other.

‘It would be like doing it with a brother’ you had mumbled once to her face, but she hadn’t looked too convinced, hence you had backed off.

You and Montana shared a tense look, meanwhile Xavier was caught between the battle, but didn’t backdown, almost shielding you with his body.

“Montana, it’s (Y/N), you do remember her, don’t you?”.

Of course, she did, and the fire in her eyes hadn’t dulled but you tried your best to smile, meanwhile you tried your best not to question what the heck was going on, meanwhile two of people you were sure were supposed to be dead were speaking in front of you.

“… what the heck are you doing here, (Y/N)?”.

You couldn’t help but wonder what was going on and feel extremely under her judgement.

“I thought about paying my respect to my best friend” you turned to Xavier, since his opinion was the only one that mattered, although you feared Montana’s initial words “… who I thought was dead, till a few minutes ago”.

“We all died” muttered Montana under her breath “… Brooke killed me”.

It surprised you greatly, because, although the jury had found Brooke’s guilty, you hadn’t, but if Montana spoke truly (and from the look of her angered face, she was)…

“Margaret killed me” rumbled Xavier and you were even more shocked, because Margaret had been the true final girl of the Camp’s massacre, and although you hadn’t liked that woman, you would have never thought she would have been able to kill somebody “… but you already know it, don’t you?”.

You were already shocked that they were alive, to think about that they didn’t know nothing about the outside world…

… it made it real.

Like it wasn’t you being crazy.

They were truly ghosts.

“… no, Brooke was framed for your murders, they said that she went mad and… “.

Xavier’s face seemed suddenly traumatized, meanwhile Montana smirked pleased.

“Well, she did stab me…”.

“But she didn’t kill us all, I can’t believe that Margaret went away that easily…”.

“I can’t believe that ghosts do exist” you complained, bringing both their attention to them and meanwhile Montana just sent you one last dirty look, before running away, Xavier looked at you surprised, and his own eyes were watery.

“… I… know that this is confusing…”.

“I am pretty sure that I am having a mental breakdown” you mumbled, meanwhile your hand went to your hair as you tried to calm yourself down.

“I was pretty sure I would never see you again” his words brought you back from the panic attack that you were having, and you saw sadness in his face, knowing perfectly what your best friend was feeling and wanting to bring him in an hug.

It was the first time ever you thought that maybe… maybe things were true.

Ghosts did exist.

“… after I died, I was in this state of constant limbo, I was unable to meet again with the others and the first thing that I thought about was you, how I would never hear you laugh at my clumsy accidents, or your sweet lectures… that I would never be able to meet you again”.

“Well, even Death didn’t get you away from me” you joked, and this time tears did fall from your face, and Xavier brought you in a hug.

But you didn’t feel hugged, although again some breeze did go through your body, and when you opened your eyes to look you saw Xavier’s limbs going through your body in a rather impressive vision that got you finally accepting the truth.

Ghosts did exist.

Your friend was one of them.

But… in all this, you had met your friend again.

You had spent the rest of that day catching up on each other (you had literally regretted that Xavier was a ghost now, because you couldn’t shove him off, when he asked about how many girls were crying at his funeral) and at the end, when night had come over, and even Xavier looked scared for you, he had pushed you to leave.

But how could you leave when now you knew all the truth and you had met your friend back, you had had him back, although you couldn’t hug him and physically touch him.

“(Y/N), you have to go back” but you didn’t want to, you never wanted to “… we are all ghosts here, who would you bone?”.

Again, you felt bad you weren’t able to wack him across the face.

“You are saying this just because you don’t want me to bone Chet”.

“I thought you had higher standard, (Y/N)” he had shot back, lowering his glasses.

“Don’t ‘higher standard me’ when you wanted to fuck Chef Bertie”.

“Chef Bertie is the true deal, babe” he commented simply, before becoming again serious “… but I am serious, you can’t spend your alive life with a ghost, I have seen movies about it and I don’t think that it never ever ends well… so please just live”.

“My life sucks without you, Xavier” you confessed, because yeah, your life had gone on, but you weren’t living, you were basically only surviving.

“I know babe, you lost the life of the party…” although his tone was meant to be lighthearted, his eyes weren’t “… but you’ll find someone, and we’ll still have Camp Redwood”.

“I can totally see why Bertie is the only person that can actually stand you, in this shit, if you quote Casblanca like that…” your eyes were teary, although your tongue spoke of sarcasm “… I am going to miss you, Xavier”.

“Well you know where to find me, babe, then”.

Through your life you had come back to Redwood many times, whether you felt bad or good, just to announce Xavier all the best news in your life, and more importantly so that he wouldn’t be forgotten.

But that day you knew that it was the last time you would ever see him.

Your eldest son had brought you on your request on the Camp Redwood limits, he had looked at you weirdly, mostly because he didn’t see what an eighty year old sick person might want to do in camp which was famous for its massacres, but you hadn’t cared.

“I need to talk with an old friend”, you had muttered before you sprinted off, knowing exactly where you would have found Xavier, although you were slowed down by your age.

Somebody came immediately to your side, and you saw Trevor and Montana taking one of your arms each, to help you since your legs couldn’t carry you on fast enough.

You had mended your relationship with Montana, after the entire “Billy Idol concert thing” in 1989 and Trevor quite liked you, mostly because you were the braincell that Xavier had lost since he had died.

He was low key tired of having to take care of your “serious method actor” by himself.

“He is waiting for you” mumbled Montana, meanwhile she helped you sit down on a log, in a secluded area, sprinting off after a kiss to your wrinkly face, gently accepting Trevor’s hand, which he held out for her.

“… thank you” you mumbled before they disappeared in front of your face and you laid comfortably onto the log, as much as your old articulation would allow it.

“… hey, (YN), is that you?” joked a voice, waking you up from your little slumber and although you knew that you weren’t yet dead, you felt Death gently embracing you like an old friend.

That was why you had asked your son to bring you here.

You had had the ideal life you could have had, moving on from Xavier, but now, you would share the rest of your existence with your friend, so that you could pick up from where you had left.

“… didn’t recognize you under all those wrinkles” joked your best friend, and, although you were a rather old person you managed to kick his shin enough that he let out an unglorified “OH” followed by some pretty extreme coursing, although he didn’t truly feel that.

“These are badges of honor” you replied, pointing at your wrinkles “… and you were the reason behind many of them…”.

Xavier just giggled, as he settled on the log so that he could have your back onto his front, his presence already bringing comfort to your aching arms, and you let yourself go, in those arms, knowing all too well that you would be ok.

Because now you were with Xavier.

And your new life with him would begin soon.

#xavier plympton #xavier plympton reader #xavier plympton x reader #xavier plympton imagine #xavier plympton ask #xavier plympton drabble #xavier plympton blurb #xavier plympton fic #xavier plympton oneshot #xavier plympton one shot #xavier plympton fanfic #xavier plympton fan fic #AHS writing #AHS #american horror story #ahs 1984 #ahs 1984 imagine

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lligkv · 5 years

Text

the smartest person who doesn’t do anything

Alison Rose, the daughter of a psychiatrist and a wealthy housewife, was hired as a receptionist at the New Yorker in her 40s—her first “real” job—and ended up writing “Talk of the Town” columns in the 1990s, striking friendships with writers like Renata Adler, Harold Brodkey, and George W. S. Trow along the way. Reading her memoir, Better than Sane, it’s clear it took Rose a long time to really achieve something, to grow beyond what she calls the “ancient feelings of freakishness” that her childhood left her with.

Her father is authoritarian and volatile. He mocks his patients and his family; he’s constantly on the verge of losing his temper with his wife and daughters. He calls them all scathing names. His wife and oldest daughter, Alison’s sister, are Babs I and Babs II, and Alison herself is Babs III, or “Personality Minus,” since she’s so quiet. Alison’s mother is glamorous and removed. She seems to treat Alison’s father as a fact of the world, one she can only accept, as she goes on to do what she likes—for instance, having children with him though he doesn’t really want them. She speaks up for her daughters sometimes, but the protests are fairly mild, in the way they might be when you’ve come to accept that the world is as it is, detaching yourself from it enough to remain sanguine.

Rose, as the product of a glamorous, abusive, inscrutable sort of childhood, is a master of the weird swerves that come from idiosyncrasy. Early in the book, she’s talking about her childhood friend “Squirrel.” “Before Squirrel’s arrival,” she tells us, “I had three mops as best friends.” “My first love, though,” she adds, “had been my pencil collection,” each member of which she names and comes to treasure. She loves the pencils because they are reliable, faithful, quiet: all the things she’s missing. And when her mother sharpens them—whether it’s by mistake or on purpose, Rose doesn’t say—it’s genuinely affecting:

Their faces were obliterated and unrecognizable. Some of them were a lot shorter, too. It was as if everyone I knew had a different head and face on a now stunted body. I couldn’t look at them anymore, all distorted like that, so I abandoned them. In the years that followed, I would see one of the pencils around the house, by a telephone, vaguely recognizable, but dead.

I came to like Alison for her humility along her halting path to some sort of accomplishment, some sort of wholeness. You could look down on her for looking up to so many famous writers, like Trow and Harold Brodkey, but her childhood left her so deeply pressed into timidity that her attachments to these magnetic figures she’s somehow become so close to is touching. Even Alison’s attachment to a youthful paramour, Billy the Fish, is touching.

Billy is Burt Lancaster’s son, whom Alison dates while she’s living in West Hollywood in the 70s, trying to become an actress. He’s a cool character, with his ironic attitude, his charisma, his “certain air of separateness”—Rose calls him “the Fish” because “it was as if he lived in its own element… [a fish] who came up for other people’s air, curious, but not very often”—and his boredom with the whole world at just twenty-two. “T’s to my E’s,” he says—short for Tears to my eyes—when he’s given a gift; “Cringe,” he says, aloud, when he feels like cringing; the people who love him, he seldom treats well. It would be easy to roll your eyes at him and wonder why Alison stays with him for seven years, on tenterhooks and speed much of the while, if her love for him weren’t so clear and so honest. “My heart liked him,” she says, simply. And the closest she ever got in life to what she calls “normal pie”—“this thing men and women get married about”—was with him.

“All of us,” Rose writes—the people who knew Billy in LA—“loved him, but he couldn’t feel it, I don’t think,” and she isn’t the type to blame him for that; she knows too well what not being able to feel love feels like. She forms deep attachments to charismatic people, the way you do when you’re raised to doubt yourself—and she’s not afraid to talk admiringly about the people who shaped her, those who challenge her notion from childhood that she’s “unsuited for human connection.” And I like that a hell of a lot more than the alternative: saying nothing or being shaped by no one.

What’s more, her self-doubt is belied by the wit she so often demonstrates. For instance, her retort to Brodkey as he calls lovingly out to her in the New Yorker’s hallway:

“My Bride,” Harold calls to me in the corridor.

“My Conscience,” I answer.

Or to Trow as he teases her when Brodkey isn’t around:

“Since Harold’s gone, why not throw a little attention my way?” George asked me that same week.

“I thought you might find it repellent,” I said.

“Not as long as you keep coming up with those snappy answers.”

In still another, more sober moment, Brodkey is trying to convince Alison to find someone other than George to bring to dinner with him and his wife. A real interest. “But Harold,” she says,

“I don’t have an appropriate suitor. You know that.”

“Not a suitor. No one likes you all that much.”

“Maybe that’s true,” I said.

Shit!

He tried to be comforting. “But nobody likes anybody all that much—it’s just moments, you know that.” After a pause, he added, “I’m the one who likes you that much, but if you get to know me better your life will be considerably shorter. Hang up now or I’ll start to cry.”

Seeing moment after moment of such quick wit from Rose, and pure honesty—such willingness to say what’s true and such refusal to sugarcoat—you see why Trow, Brodkey, and Penelope Gilliatt, another writer who often stops by Alison’s desk, like her so much. And why they seem to believe she has talent even when she does not. Anytime Rose says something Trow particularly understands, he tells her: “Darling: Write that down.”

The college-degreed writers in the office call the New Yorker “the magazine”; Alison, out of place as a Californian with no college education or work experience of any kind, calls it “School.” And the name is apt for deeper reasons than the one Alison gives, which is that she gets to write “notes to boys” like Brodkey and Trow. It’s an education. And it’s a second shot at a real life, with people who take pleasure in her mind.

“For nearly four decades,” Rose writes, she struggled with “enemy thinking”:

people deciding that the way I saw things was punishable by exile. Enemy-thinking people seem to have a ceaseless, brutal, active desire to punish; perhaps it made them feel superior and powerful. The writers at this School, who in their context were superior and powerful, were a divine present to me—their ease, which created a freedom from worrying about enemy thinking. The destruction it had done to me so far, like my conviction that I just plain didn’t belong in the world, was gone, or it felt like it.

The narrative rolls on. Alison, whose job performance is always a little erratic, is let go from her receptionist position; Trow—who tells her, in a memorable moment, that she cannot keep being “the smartest person who doesn’t do anything forever”—becomes determined to get her another place at School as a “Talk of the Town” writer; she gets the position and stays there for a while, until she leaves. Better than Sane is a force-of-personality book, and most of the things that happen in it go only elliptically explained.

But there is one narrative driver. The trauma that keeps Alison adrift can’t be gone until she confronts the people who instilled enemy thinking in her in the first place.

In the final chapters, Rose describes returning to her mother’s house in Atherton for her mother’s 90th birthday. Alison’s father drops out of the narrative after its first few chapters, but her mother has recurred throughout, often as a provoking presence in Alison’s life. And at the party, so close to her again, Alison’s character regresses. She becomes very clingy with her dog Puppy Jane, clutching Jane to her so she doesn’t have to be spoken to about anything but the dog. She behaves in alienating ways because she fears being alienated, on-the-outs with her mother and sister; better to fit their perception of her as the “crazy” one.

The crisis doesn’t resolve until Alison and her sister Belinda track down their old housekeeper Nita, now living in neighboring Richmond, to ask her about their childhood. In the conversation they have, Alison’s father returns and again comes to seem like the real enemy: “He was cruel,” Nita says firmly. “Very cruel.” “There was one person,” she tells Alison, “who wasn’t nice to you. Your father. He was real mean and your mother was so nice.”

Is what Nita says true? It’s hard to be sure. It’s certainly plausible, but Alison’s mother is a little too distant and arch for you to get a clear bead on her character, and as you hear her comment on the family’s drama, it’s clear Nita herself sees the family at some distance (which is healthy, for a housekeeper). But it is true that the person who terrifies you, as Alison’s father terrified her and her mother, is a force of nature. You don’t talk about him; you certainly don’t talk to him. Instead, you treat him as a fact of the world. You might harm yourself (or your children) as a result. Or you leave, and you push the person who terrifies you into the past. And usually the damage is still done. The anger that is permitted is the anger you feel toward the ones who are nice to you, at least sometimes, who seem as though they could be convinced and reasoned with and moved to act on your behalf yet refuse to respond to reason or persuasion or pleading or need. At the same time, terror of her father, and her mother’s seeming implacability, leave Alison timid, unable to express any of that anger or feel confidence in herself. So she wanders for years, not doing anything. And it takes Nita telling Alison, “Alis’, it was a crazy house. That’s all” for Alison to realize she can let it all go.

These final chapters—in which Alison, having finally accomplished something with her life, and having been recognized and loved by the writers at School, goes home and learns the truth, that it was her family that was crazy and not her, and is redeemed—do feel a little pat. But Better than Sane was published in 2004, and maybe that was before we all became cynical about the memoir form from seeing the familiar arc (a normal or painful childhood, an experience of crisis and failure, a fall to the depths, an opening to others, a redemption, a happy ending) play out so many times. Or maybe the end feels that much more predictable because the path Alison’s taken to get there has been so unpredictable.

The book did leave me wondering where Rose is now. Better than Sane is her only book. There are quite a few literary Alison Roses out there, but none seem to be her. There really is something “regal” about Rose, as Stacy Schiff put it in her New York Times review of the book—something deeply affecting about her honesty, the plainness of her feeling beneath the elliptical prose, the humility with which she presents herself. If she never writes again that I know of, it’d be a shame.

#literary #books #alison rose #george w. s. trow #harold brodkey #memoir

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